Leonard Campbell Taylor

Who was Leonard Campbell Taylor?

Leonard Campbell Taylor was a British painter of mainly portraits and interiors in a traditional style. Among his patrons was the founding family of Courtaulds and the Courtauld Institute of Art.

Born at Oxford, Leonard Taylor was the son of James Taylor, organist at New College and for the University of Oxford. There he studied at that the Dragon School when it was still located in Crick Road under the first headmaster, Rev. A. E. Clark. He was the second of four brothers at the school and later designed the front cover of the school magazine, The Draconian, in 1900. He went on to study at Cheltenham College with a scholarship and then the Ruskin School in Oxford, before moving on to the St John's Wood Art School, London. From 1895 to 1900, he was a student as the Royal Academy School.

Taylor exhibited primarily in London and Paris, and lived in Suffolk. He served as an official war artist with the infantry and later the Royal Navy during the First World War. His war art is primarily "documentary" in nature and painstakingly accurate.