The following is reproduced with the kind permission of the author, Henryk Ptasiewicz, St Louis, MO, USA:

Robert Lenkiewicz should be the most famous artist in Britain, but few people have heard of him. Sadly he died last year at age sixty. He was prolific and he was also financially successful, in a way. His library was worth an estimated three million pounds, but his studio wasn't heated. He had twelve children to different ladies. He was driven and his subjects were people, sex and death.

I've had the good fortune to meet him on several occasions, starting in 1985, and he was virtually the last person I spoke to when I came to America. He made Plymouth, England his home, and his studio is in the Barbican area. As you came around the corner of quaint, but daunting back streets you were confronted by a huge mural, which always reminded me of Hieronimous Bosch, and then you noticed a glass fronted room, which was the display area, and a sign above it which simply said, "Robert Lenkiewicz, portrait painter". I spent a lot of time with my nose pressed against that window. Next to it was a weathered door, which led to several book rooms, and finally three huge rooms that were RL' s studios. In the cafe opposite on the wall is a parody of the last supper, with RL as Christ, and behind the studio was a mural that was "The Last temptation of St Anthony" where 96 naked figures lift their arms, and one lone youth defecates gold coins.

It's not the sort of subject that you could give to your aunt, but he didn't care, this is human nature, it is what we all do and are interested in. There was an episode where he embalmed a dead friend, and put his naked body in his studio window, to see if people became blase after a while and just treated it as an object.

He worked in projects. For his project on addiction he had over 800 people come and sit for him. On the project for education, 150 people sat for him and then wrote a one thousand word essay.

At age 16 he painted a three hundred foot long mural. He didn't go on about technique, or colours, he painted with whatever he could get hold of, he said that he needed two brushes, one to paint with and one to clean his teeth with. If David Hockney or Lucien Freud, his contemporaries, broke wind, it was great art, this man painted rings around them.

I wished that you could have met him, he was physically huge, but very soft spoken, and you hung onto every word he said. I could talk about him all day. If you ever go to Britain check out Plymouth. He is the epitome of someone who knew that he was an artist from day one and was forever following his own muse.

In a way Robert Lenkiewicz gave me permission to be an artist. Looking at his method, directly from life and life size, he showed me that ambition and commitment work. I know the struggles he had, to make ends meet he sometimes broke into empty buildings to steal the lead and copper pipes. One of his studios was a place where the derelicts could sleep. They put a piano in there and he talks about carrying out the bodies of people who died in the night. His parents took in as lodgers survivors from Auschwitz and Dachau, the hotel Shem-tov. These were people who were deeply disturbed and throughout his career the theme of helping people who were on the periphery of life became his life's work. A lot of his work was only suitable for an audience with a broad mind, but so is life. I have seen a lot of his work. The closest painter to his style was N.C.Wyeth, huge broad brush strokes that almost rip the canvas. In his studio were numerous unfinished canvases, at the same time at his major retrospective in 1993 I believe there was over one hundred paintings, most of them over six feet by four. Billy Connelly the comedian did a tour of Britain and had his portrait painted by Robert, and did a tour of his studio, but apparently it was a damp squib, a bit like the coming together of Madonna and Warren Beatty.

When Robert died, the Guardian newspaper did a little piece, and hid it. A television documentary that was only seen in the South West of England was also shown, but that was it. To me one of the most influential artists of the late Twentieth Century disappeared and the Art world seems relieved. He was loved by ordinary people, which is never a good thing if you want to be the next Damien Hirst. He was an avid reader and scholar, he could talk about anything in depth. He was a man alone.