LANHAM, Neil

1938 - ?

Neil A. Lanham was born at Halstead, Essex in 1938, only son of the two children of Arthur George Lanham (11 January 1904-12 December 1943), manager of an electricity company, and his wife Ruby Jesse Allerton (27 December 1905-7 February 1998), daughter of Charles Allerton of Redhouse Farm, Boxford, who married at Hadleigh, Suffolk in 1935. Neil, whilst at school, had his paintings exhibited at The Children’s Royal Academy when he won prizes. His mother decided that Neil should become an auctioneer and sent him to a firm in Cambridge to learn the trade. He started on large machinery sales at Grain & Chalk, now Cheffins in Cambridge, and spent a year at the College of Estate Management in London. Later, he joined Spear & Sons auction centre at Campsea Ashe and in his early 20s he was offered a position at agricultural firm Charles Boardman & Son, Haverhill, joining them in January 1962. In June 1962, Mr Boardman died, and he purchased the firm in 1963. Neil expanded the business into Clare and Bury St Edmund's and started a commercial department and a fine art department. About 1975 he sold the estate agency side and concentrated on antiques retiring from the company in 2000. On becoming an auctioneer, he graduated towards art in collecting, cataloguing, and researching paintings which formulated his mind as to how he wished to paint. On retiring, art again came to the fore and in using strong evocative colours on a heavily textured under surface, dragging one colour, in broken line, over another he found that he could create the all-important ‘Zing’. His paintings are of scenes around his Suffolk home at Botesdale and of the undulating Suffolk landscape around Hartest from a point where five churches can be seen. He is also the author of 'Stories from Wags Aldred: Suffolk Stallion Leader' (2008) and 'There's a Story That My Mother Told' (2007).

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Works by This Artist