Robert Lenkiewicz - Later Life and Death

Later Life and Death

After his first exhibition with an established art dealer, in the 1990s Lenkiewicz's work enjoyed growing commercial success and some recognition by the establishment. He received a major retrospective in 1997 at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, attended by 42,000 visitors.

Lenkiewicz, aged 60, died of a heart attack in 2002. Despite painting 10,000 works rated of 'national importance' by the British Museum he had only £12 cash in his possession (having never opened a bank account), and owed £2 million to various creditors.

Since his death examples of his best paintings have fetched ever-rising prices in London auction rooms. In his obituary of Lenkiewicz, art critic David Lee observed: "Robert's greatest gift was to show us that an artist could be genuinely concerned about social and domestic issues and attempt the difficult task of expressing this conscience through the deeply unfashionable medium of figurative painting. In that sense he was one of few serious painters of contemporary history."

The rise in Lenkiewicz's popularity was shown in a 2008 auction of his personal collection of his own works, the auction of his paintings and library raised £2.1million. The auction was held by Bearne's Auctioneers (now Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood) at Westpoint Arena in Exeter.

Lenkiewicz never paid tax or kept any records of sales of his works.

In 2009 when his estate was finally valued after lawyers spent 7 years going through personal effects he was found to have left £6.5 million. As well as paintings the estate included a £1 million book collection.

Lenkiewicz was the father of 11 children, His daughter Alice Lenkiewicz is a painter, poet and editor of the literary magazine, Neon Highway. His stepdaughter, Rebecca Lenkiewicz, is an accomplished playwright who has had her work performed at the Royal National Theatre. Another stepdaughter is Bianca Eliot. Lenkiewicz's pupils include Piran Bishop, Yana Travail, Dan Wheatley, Lisa Stokes and Joe Stoneman.