Leslie Arthur Wilcox
| Leslie Arthur Wilcox | |
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| Born |
Leslie Arthur Wilcox 13 March 1904 Fulham, London, England |
| Died | 11 January 1982 (aged 77) Rustington, Sussex, England |
| Occupation | Artist |
Leslie Arthur Wilcox, RI, RSMA (13 March 1904 – 11 January 1982) was an eminent British artist known mainly as a marine artist working in oils. He was also a watercolourist, illustrator, poster artist, marine model-maker and author. He was for some years Honorary Secretary of the Royal Society of Marine Artists and a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours. His works are in many collections around the world, including the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and the Royal Collection. He wrote and illustrated two books on maritime history: Mr Pepys' Navy (1966 G. Bell & Sons Ltd., London) and Anson's Voyage (1969 G. Bell & Sons, Ltd., London)
Born on 13 March 1904 to a working class family in Fulham, he was the youngest of five children. Two of his brothers died in the Middle East towards the end of the First World War which seems to have had a profound effect on his outlook and beliefs. He left school at 14, and at about that time won an art competition in a national newspaper with a watercolour drawing of an aircraft; on the strength of this he obtained his first job in an advertising studios in the Strand. He learned many aspects of commercial art there, and eventually set up a studio in Holborn with two artist friends, where all three worked on illustration and children’s comics.
With the Second World War looming he decided to volunteer for the navy before conscription started, and had spent only a few months in the Naval Patrol Service before his skills were recognised and he was seconded to the Naval Camouflage unit at Leamington Spa, where he spent the rest of the war making model ships and testing camouflage designs. After the war he went back to his studio, but found it difficult to find illustration work, however by then he had begun to sell his oil paintings and to build a reputation as a marine artist, being elected a member of the Royal Society of Marine Artists in 1947. Then in 1953 he received a commission from the Master of Trinity House to paint the triumphal return of the Queen from the Commonwealth Tour, with the Royal Yacht Britannia passing under Tower Bridge in London; this painting was presented to Her Majesty in 1954 and it subsequently hung over the fireplace in the drawing-room of the Royal Yacht until the ship was decommissioned; the work now hangs in Frogmore House at Windsor.
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