Les Coleman R.I.P

I was given this beautiful pencil sharpener masquerading as a prosthetic nose last week….on the very day that the artist and aphorist Les Coleman sadly passed away. I met Les twenty something years ago at an artist book festival. I’d owned his superb Kojak book [in pre Photoshop clever type punning that used Kodak’s coloured logo and containing signature witticisms both literary and visual]. Once a fan always a fan. I bought Meet The Art Students and uncontrollably wet myself reading it on the way home on the tube. Whilst temporary course director for the MA Drawing at Kingston University I invited him to give a talk on his work. No student had heard of him. What knocked everyone out that evening was the sculptures he made (and I for one was never aware of this other oeuvre). I still can’t figure out how he constructed a suspended pyramid of books that defied gravity in a south London library .

What a rare talent. A great man. A crime his work isn’t in Tate Modern or never been given a big retrospective.