Visiting Painter British artist demonstrating at Haywrights

Press, 28 May 1979, Page 5

Visiting Painter British artist demonstrating at Haywrights

Tim Leigh was 14 years old when he joined the English firm, Royal Doulton, Limited, as a trainee china artist. Next month, when he returns from a promotional tour of New Zealand, he will retire after painting the firm’s sraceful figurines for 50 years. Mr Leieh will be in New Zealand from May 13-June 2, and will demonstrate his skill in Haywrights’ department stores throughout the country. (Auckland, May 13-20; Wellington, . May 21-25: Christchurch, May 28-June 2.) He is accompanied by Mr George Bott, chief executive for Royal Boulton’s domestic-ware sales division.

The artist’s five days of demonstrations and explanatory lectures in Christchurch will be held in the gound-floor china showroom of Haywrights’ main city store. This evening he will be welcomed to the city at a wine and cheese evening, to which a number of china connoisseurs have been invited.

The visit of Mr Leigh to this country coincides with a national Royal Doulton promotion

programme sponsored by Haywrights, Limited, and this month all their stores will feature comprehensive displays of the high-quality china and glass produced by this well-known English firm. For the last 17 years, Tim Leigh has been manager of the on-glaze department of Royal Doulton, Limited, at Stoke-on-Trent, and for more than 20 years he has done all rhe new original

figures, before handing over to other painters for commercial reproduction. His has been the skill behind the countless numbers of hand-painted figurines which sell around the world. Working for Royal Doulton is part of the Leigh family tradition, and Mr Leigh’s mother, mother-in-law, wife and daughter have all worked at the factory in the past. Tim Leigh started work at nine shillings a week, supplementing the practical work by

studying at Burslem College of Art for seven years. These were the years in which he learned drawing, painting in oils and water-colours, etching and modelling, skills of the china artist which he has passed on to new generations of Royal Doulton artists. At the start of his career, Mr Leigh handpainted scenes on plates, but soon moved to the elite figure-painting deportment. This was the time when figuremaking became a serious commercial venture at the factory. Doultons had made character jugs at their Lambeth works in the early nineteenth century, but the appointment of Charles Noke as Art Director in the early 1900 s started the figure range as we know it today. He has trained others to take his place, and maintains that he is not really retiring. “I’ll have my pottery and painting at home, i’ll have plenty of therapy.” This is Tim Leigh’s third overseas trip in connection with his work. Previous promotional visits have included visits to Japan and Australia.