Leslie Marr in Shropshire (1953)
Leslie Marr was born in Durham in 1922. At the age of 10 he inherited the baronetcy held by his grandfather, shipbuilder Sir James Marr, 1st Baronet. After attending Shrewsbury School, Marr studied engineering at Pembroke College, Cambridge, graduating in 1942. During World War Two he served as a technician in the Royal Air Force, and it was during a posting in Palestine that he first became interested in art.
On leaving the RAF, he attended life classes at Heatherley's Art School before joining David Bomberg’s classes at the Borough Polytechnic. Bomberg was to have a profound influence on Marr’s early career, and in turn Marr was instrumental in supporting and organising the exhibitions of the Borough Group, an association of students who adhered closely to Bomberg’s teaching. Early Group exhibitions were held at Marr’s bookshop, The Bookworm, in Newport Court, Soho and he also served as the first secretary.
Marr’s connection to Bomberg also extended into his personal life. Marr married Dinora Mendelson, Bomberg’s stepdaughter and fellow Borough Group member. Marr’s personal wealth was in stark contrast to those of most other members, and he financed a number of Bomberg’s painting trips, often accompanying the older artist. This closeness to Bomberg and his family was a contributory factor to the tensions that erupted within the Group which was also riven by arguments over direction, membership and exhibitions. The Group disbanded very acrimoniously in 1950, the same year Marr’s marriage to Mendelson ended. Disenchanted and hurt by the treatment he was afforded by some other members of the Group, Marr rarely associated or exhibited with any of the original members again, memorably recalling the intervening period in 2015 as the ’60 Year War’.
Marr’s reputation lies primarily in his landscape painting although he was a skilled portraitist and still life painter. His work is characterised by rich colours and expressionistic handling of paint. His near abstract landscapes of the 1960s, in which paint was applied thickly with brush and palette knife, gave way to a more lyrical and representational style in which thin glazes of oil were used. He travelled widely, painting across the UK and Europe, and as far afield as New Zealand. His life as an artist was briefly interrupted during the mid-1950s while he pursued a second career as a Formula 1 racing driver, twice competing at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
Although Marr’s work is indelibly linked and compared to that of his old tutor, he was very much his own man both in life and art. Marr was an eloquent and highly articulate commentator on painting. He remained both an engaging conversationalist and active painter until his last days. After a long spell living and working in Arran – the subject of some of his best landscapes – he moved to Norfolk in 1991 before settling in Gimingham (Norfolk) in 2001 where he lived with his third wife, Maureen, until his death in May 2021 at the age of 98. His work can be found in many collections of Modern and Contemporary British Art, including The British Academy, Imperial College Collection, Laing Art Gallery Newcastle upon Tyne, and Pallant House Gallery, Chichester.