Robert Lenkiewicz sought the total fusion of life and art. He was born in war-torn London to Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, Lenkiewicz moved to Plymouth in 1969 where he kept an open studio with an ‘all are welcome’ policy. His vast Barbican mural soon became one of the city’s best known and most popular landmarks. Largely ignored by the art establishment, he created his own audience of ordinary people who would never normally set foot in an art gallery or museum. His work nevertheless confronted the most serious of themes: vagrancy, mental handicap, old age, suicide, addiction, love, and death – often with wry, mischievous humour. Staying true to his aesthitic principles, he did not live to see his reputation flourish. Now considered by many one of south west England's most important painters of modern times. www.robertlenkiewicz.org