Lyndon Harris

Lyndon Goodwin Harris, artist: born Halesowen, Worcestershire 25 July 1928; died Halesowen 4 June 2006.

Lyndon Harris was an artist whose life was almost overpowered by his talent. The traditional story of a young man or woman struggling against family disapproval or financial circumstances to follow their artistic dreams was, in his case, the opposite of what happened. When his mother discovered at the age of 38 that she was pregnant with her first (and to be only) child, his father pronounced that the child would be a boy and he would grow up to be an artist. It was as if he was given no choice in the matter.

He was brought up in an oppressive household. Sidney Harris, Lyndon Harris's father, had a relatively modest clerical position and taught book-keeping; in the traditional Victorian sense, he believed that free time was not for pleasure but for self-improvement. Asked why she did not stick up for herself more, his wife Polly replied simply: "You don't have to live with him." Sidney however was also a passionate -and discriminating - collector who filled with china and fine paintings the substantial house he built for himself in Halesowen in Worcestershire. He gave his son the middle name Goodwin as a mark of his friendship with the watercolour painter Albert Goodwin, whose pictures he collected.

Albert Goodwin (1845-1932) believed that painting was an almost divinely inspired activity. His pictures, deeply influenced by Turner, are imbued with considerable feeling for atmosphere and a love of landscape; Harris's own work was in turn inspired by Goodwin and is in the English landscape tradition of Turner and Cotman. Harris was surrounded by art from the start of his life, and his carefully nurtured talent was obvious even from childhood; at the astonishingly early age of 13, in 1942 he exhibited at the Royal Academy for the first time with a watercolour entitled Old Houses and Church at Halesowen.

After leaving Halesowen Grammar School, Harris spent a year at the Birmingham School of Art, from where in 1948 he won a Leverhulme scholarship to the Slade School of Art in London. In consecutive years at the Slade, he won Certificates of Merit at the Paris Salon (later, in 1956, he also won a Gold Medal).

On graduating, he spent his two years' National Service in the Royal Air Force - during which time his photograph appeared in the Birmingham Sunday Mercury with the headline "Started at 13" and the description of Harris as "probably the most distinguished young artist in the Midlands". His father insisted that Lyndon gain a teaching certificate, after which he taught at the Stourbridge College of Art: he was totally unsuited for the work and, although it provided him with a living, he detested every moment of it until eventually he retired.

Already by 1947, Harris had been elected to the Royal West of England Academy, and he also became a member of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1952, and of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours in 1958. The greater part of his work was in watercolour, although he also etched and painted in oils. Although he was very reluctant to let go of his pictures - for which he could achieve high prices - his work was acquired by, among others, the Ministry of Works, the Birmingham and Midland Institute, the City of Worcester and by the family of Sir Henry Tate (of the Tate Gallery and Tate and Lyle).

Signing himself "Lyndon G. Harris", he never let go of the Goodwin tradition and, arguably, the narrow constraints in which Harris painted, as well as his own natural facility, prevented his developing a contemporary artistic voice. The death in 1971 of his father, who had dominated his life, traumatised Harris and he ceased to paint altogether.

He had never married: his father had told him it would be to his detriment to do so. Despite the fact that his mother lived for another three years, his reply, on being asked why he no longer painted, was that "he had no one to paint for". His yearly journey up to London to attend the Annual General Meetings of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours became a rare opportunity for artistic companionship, even after he no longer exhibited.

Old age added to his problems. Formerly an accomplished organist and pianist, Harris grew increasingly deaf. He suffered badly in a cycling accident and this was the excuse he gave to his artistic societies for no longer painting. A short, spare and quite gentle man, he could also both immensely stubborn - especially when it was a matter of his own possessions - and litigious. A major theft from his house of 16 works, both of his own and by others, affected him greatly. Although the burglar received a 12 months' jail sentence, only two of the stolen works were recovered.

The burglary made Harris more reclusive and eccentric than ever, and he ventured as seldom as possible from the house. When he failed one day in June to appear at a neighbour's to take Sunday lunch and collect his washing the police were called to make an entry. Every door in the house - which was in squalor - was locked; his body was found in his bedroom, where he had probably died some days beforehand (4 June was given as an official date).

He died intestate although, oddly, the deeds to his house were found lying on top of his grand piano. His father's china and coin collection, as well as the watercolour drawings by Albert Goodwin, a number of oils, and a painting by a pupil of the 17th-century Italian artist Salvator Rosa are to be auctioned by Christies and Bonhams.

Simon Fenwick