Robert Oskar Lenkiewicz...

Self Portrait

Robert Oskar Lenkiewicz was born in London on 31 December, 1941. His parents were Jewish refugees and ran a hotel in Kilburn for fellow refugees, some of whom were survivors of Nazi concentration camps.

Lenkiewicz began painting at an early age, often using hotel residents as his subjects. At the age of sixteen he began studying at St. Martin’s College of Art and Design and later at the Royal Academy.

Lenkiewicz moved to Plymouth in 1969 and was drawn to vagrants and alcoholics. He helped them to commandeer old warehouses for shelter and they in return would sit for him and be the subjects for his paintings.

Lenkiewicz embarked on a series of ‘Projects’, the first of which was Vagrancy. These ‘Projects’ would combine paintings with observations and notes written by both the painter and the subject, sometimes together with notes from the people involved with their care.

For the residents of Plymouth Lenkiewicz was becoming a familiar figure. He painted a large mural onto the façade of a building near to his studio on The Barbican. The mural portrayed famous historical figures such as Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh. At one point Lenkiewicz painted over this magnificent mural, a couple of migrating ducks, in removable paint. A box for coins was placed at the foot of the wall and the public were invited to vote for the painting that they preferred by placing a coin in the relevant slot. This was typical of Lenkiewicz.

He also came to attention in 1981 when he faked his own death to publicize an upcoming Project. He was in fact alive and well.

Lenkiewicz was an avid collector of books, building up a collection of some 25,000 volumes on subjects which included art, psychology, sexuality and magic. Many of his paintings were sold to fund the purchase of a ‘must have’ book which was in the hands of a London dealer.

Robert Lenkiewicz died from a serious heart condition on 5 August 2002. He was buried, according to his wishes, in the garden of his home in Lower Compton.






The Mary Notebook


Magdalena & Mary, 3 June 1978


'Addictive state serious', 24 Feb 1978


Robert & Mary - pen & ink

The Mary Notebook is the fullest realisation of the artist's thought-provoking and unconventional ideas about the nature of human relationships: especially what Lenkiewicz termed "the falling in love scenario". Lenkiewicz had previously presented a variety of 'Projects' (exhibitions of paintings and drawings accompanied by research notes) with titles such as Love & Romance, Love & Mediocrity, and Jealousy in which he explored the idea of romance as an aesthetic relationship, as opposed to an emotional or spiritual connection, with overtones of addictive behaviour. He strongly held the view that any erotic relationship did not occur between oneself and the other person, but between oneself and one's own 'aesthetic package' of private fantasies and predilections, indulged in the other's presence.

The entire assemblage intensively recorded the artist's thoughts and sensations during four years of his relationship with the enigmatic Mary, from its beginnings in 1978 to their honeymoon in Rome.


"Lenkiewicz would record their every encounter in minute detail, meticulously noting each emotional shiver and physical tremor with almost clinical detachment and illustrating each page in hallucinatorily vivid watercolours. The Mary Notebook, as it would become known, is a disturbingly compelling document..."

Mick Brown, Telegraph Magazine, 9 Oct 2004



Lenkiewicz: The Book Collector


The Book Collector