HURRY, Leslie George

1909 - 1978

Leslie George Hurry was born at Marylebone, London on 10 February 1909, youngest of the three children of Alfred George Hurry (12 October 1868-25 January 1950), a funeral furnisher & undertaker, and his wife Edith Louise Perry née Butcher (26 July 1870-26 February 1954), who married at Emmanuel, Forest Gate, Essex on 7 July 1894. In 1911, Leslie was living at 53 High Street, St John's Wood, Marylebone with his parents, 42-year-old Alfred and 39-year-old Edith and his two siblings, 15-year-old Edith Louise and 12-year-old Sydney Alfred. Leslie was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School and studied at St John's Wood School of Art 1925-1927 but failed to complete his five-year scholarship to Royal Academy Schools. His early professional work consisted of murals for his father's house and decorative schemes for a firm of brewers for their public bars. He then painted landscapes which led to his first solo exhibition at the Wertheim Gallery in 1937. In the second half of the 1930s, he wandered around Britain and Ireland painting landscapes but, being dissatisfied with his work and seeking inspiration to develop a personal style, he moved to Brittany then to Paris only returning to Britain due to health problems and was unfit for military service for the Second World War. He produced two books of automatic drawings 'The Journey' and 'Book of the Seven Eagles' 1940-1941 which included his own text. His exhibition at Redfern Gallery in 1941 brought Hurry to the attention of ballet dancer Robert Helpmann (1909-1986) which led to a cooperation in the production of 'Hamlet' after which Hurry became associated with Sadler's Wells and the theatre. Leslie George Hurry lived at The Buntings, Hundon, Clare, Suffolk but died in London on 20 November 1978. In 1996, Marina Henderson held a retrospection exhibition of his stage designs, and his 'Visions of War and Peace' were shown at Gainsborough's House Gallery, Sudbury in 2009.

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Works by This Artist