The Death and the Maiden Project was exhibited twice, first in Plymouth and then in Coventry:

1) Date: 20 July - 1 Nov, 1974.
Venue: The Fool, 7 Clifton Street, Plymouth.

2) Date: c. 10 Nov – mid Dec, 1974.
Venue: Wilmas Galleries, 163 Spon St., Coventry.

There were 72 paintings shown at The Fool. Less than 20 sold. All paintings plus an additional four were included in the show at Wilmas Galleries. Wilmas’ price list names the buyers of the sold works, and for the others the prices were raised 75% on average.

Lenkiewicz produced a booklet, ‘Notes on Death and the Maiden’, that was sold at the exhibitions. The booklet is 37 pp, plus a page explaining the front cover illustration. Most unusual for Robert, this illustration, which is also used on the exhibition poster, is not his own but redrawn from a German 19th century book. There are also two extra plates, clearly late additions.

In 1997, the following brief explanation of the Project was contained in the booklet produced to accompany a Retrospective of Lenkiewicz's work.

"All union of sexes is a sign of (coming) of death; and we could not know 'love' were we to live indefinitely." Anatole France.

In 1974 Lenkiewicz produced a small book titled: Notes on Death and the Maiden. This ran parallel with the Exhibition of the same title at his premises on the corner of Clifton Street. The book was an abbreviated version of a large book of notes on cultural attitudes towards death, corruption and decay. Page 10 of these notes introduces ideas that linked the fear of hell with the fear of decay. The notes proceed to develop the idea frequently suggested by art-historians, that the allegory of Death and the Maiden expresses not only the fear of death but fear of the female. Lenkiewicz felt this was an unsatisfactory interpretation, and that the issue was complex, with shadows cast from unexpected areas.

He noted the curious attention in Medieval Danse Macabre images given to the corpses. Striking woodcuts of decaying representations of Death dance before their victims on the edges of graves. What seized his attention however in these ghastly images were the flailing viscera from open abdomens - a parody of pregnancy:

"...this decomposing woman was designed to bear children, but the contents of her stomach reveal only the destiny of birth. "

Many of Lenkiewicz's studies for this project considered the cycle of birth and death. 'Death' presenting his intestines to the Maiden was explored along with the formula of the Three Magi and their Gifts. The decay of the body is frightening. It is this same body, however, that is bound up with our personal sex lives. Fear may stimulate eroticism and death takes on unexpected possibilities. Desire and decomposition interrelate. Putrefaction need not smell the decay of 'love' has its own immediately recognisabie odour. Illusions rot and fragment, and as the body filters into the earth, so the memories of 'loves' vaporise and die. In the decomposition of our 'loves' we unwittingly attend our own funeral. Death and the Maiden echoes the mortality of our affections, and encourages us to consider them more carefully.