Leonard french artist biography

Story by Reg MacDonald | Photo Caption: The late Leonard French in his home cum studio, a 19th century mill at Heathcote, Central Victoria.

In the shadow box above his head is an ancient and rare Boiken figure.

Melanesian artefacts played a big hand in the creative life of Leonard French, the  Australian artist who designed and constructed the iconic stained glass ceiling at the National Gallery of Victoria.

French (1928-2017), a member of  OAS for a number of years, was a keen collector of tribal art from Papua New Guinea and said these bold and distinctive carvings, their imagery often highlighted with strongly coloured natural pigments, presented him with a new and exciting language of symbols.

For the last 35 years of his life French lived  in a converted 19th century flour mill in Heathcote in Central Victoria, where he surrounded himself with PNG tribal art objects and allowed their dist