For Lenkiewicz, the painted figure became a meeting point between private experience and the universal questions of love, identity and death.
Robert Lenkiewicz (1941–2002) was a British painter who placed the human figure at the centre of an extensive enquiry into life and relationships. Born in London to Jewish refugee parents, he grew up at the Hotel Shemtov, which his family ran. Its elderly residents and displaced intellectuals introduced him to experiences of suffering, ageing and mortality that would later inform his work.
Lenkiewicz studied at St Martin’s School of Art and the Royal Academy Schools, developing his practice through close observation and the study of Old Master paintings. He settled in Plymouth during the 1960s, establishing a studio on the Barbican in 1969. The city and its inhabitants became central to his artistic life. His monumental Barbican Mural, completed in 1972, made his work a prominent part of the local landscape.
He organised much of his output into thematic projects, bringing paintings together with research and written observations. Subjects included homelessness, ageing, education and death, alongside more intimate investigations into love, jealousy and attachment. These exhibitions asked viewers to consider both individual lives and the attitudes of the society around them.
His sitters included friends, lovers, family members and people living at the edges of society. Self-portraiture also offered a means of examining his own place within the relationships he depicted. Across these subjects, painting became a way to confront the emotional intensity and transience of human experience.
An independent and sometimes controversial figure, Lenkiewicz developed a substantial public following. A major retrospective at Plymouth City Art Gallery in 1997 reflected the strength of that connection. He died in 2002, leaving a body of work distinguished by its sustained attention to people and the circumstances of their lives.