Leon Underwood (1890 - 1975)

Sculptor, printmaker, painter, designer, writer and teacher, born in London. Studied from 1907-10 at Regent Street Polytechnic School of Art under Percival Gaskell, then a scolarship took him to Royal College of Art, 1910-13, where he was taught painting partly by Gerald Moira. After World War I service in Royal Engineers Camouflage Section, Underwood completed commissioned pictures for Imperial War Museum. From 1919-20 enrolled for year's refresher course at Slade School of Fine Art, almost exclusively life drawing under Henry Tonks. In 1921 opened Brook Green School, started on two years of constant printmarking and began first major painting, Venus in Kensington Gardens. From 1920 Unerwood had been teaching life drawing at Royal College of Art, but in 1923 he resigned and went to Paris and Iceland on a Rome Prize grant. By then he had had first one-man show at Chenil Galleries, 1922. The 1920s were busy for Underwood: he travelled ex