Leslie van der Sluys was born in Melbourne in 1939. His general art training was undertaken at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology with, among others, Tate Adams, and later at the Melbourne State College. He also has a BA (Art History and Classical Studies) from the University of Melbourne.

He has been making linocuts of floral and faunal subjects since he was at high school, where he was introduced to the genre by Sydney relief printmaker, Florence Higgs, who through the example of her own work introduced him to the rich formal and decorative potential of the Australian flora.

After an informal apprenticeship as a landscape painter in both London and Melbourne with John Perceval during the 1960s, he taught art in secondary schools while pursuing plein air landscape painting around Heidelberg and the Yarra Valley on weekends.

In 1980 he returned to his former interest in linocut and the following year became a full-time printmaker, employing his earlier experience as a watercolourist in the hand-colouring of his single block prints. Although it is painstakingly laborious, he prefers this process to the printed-colour method because of its greater luminosity. It also allows more opportunity for the subtle modulation of tone and hue.

Leslie has sadly passed away - July 2010 - after a battle with leukemia. He will be missed.

Exhibitions -

Collections

• Holmes a Court Collection, Perth
• Elton John Collection, UK
• Lord Harewood Collection, UK
• Melbourne University
• La Trobe University, Melbourne
• New Queen Victoria Hospital, Melbourne
• Parliament House Offices, Sydney
• I.B.M. Sydney
• Ibis Hotel, Sydney
• Westmead Hospital, Sydney
• Accor Asian Pacific
• Family Law Courts, Canberra
• New Parliament House, Canberra
• Griffith University, Brisbane
• Brisbane City Hall Art Gallery and Museum
• Commonwealth Artbank
• C.R.A.
• Qantas
• RACV