Len Thurston, Artist, 1934 - 2015
There are few readers of popular culture who have not seen Len Thurston’s work - instantly recognisable for the technical brilliance and depiction of period, romance and character - but few would know his name.
Born 12th February, 1934, Len Thurston was a British artist and noted illustrator for book covers and national magazines during the second half of the 20th century. His work appeared regularly in Woman and Woman’s Own, Woman's Realm, TV Times and Radio Times.
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His passion for painting was sparked as a young boy when he attended South East Technical College of Art, where he studied carpentry and woodwork, along with art. It was this formative time that turned a talented young boy into a skilled practitioner.
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He started his career as a lettering artist enjoying the precision and technical demands of the discipline. He worked at IPC Magazines in Holborn, publishers of Woman and Woman’s Own, rising to Art Editor for the Group before he left in 1968 to pursue a freelance career and, from that point on, he never stopped working.
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He had started illustrating under the pseudonym Harold Walter during the 1960s and had built up a strong client base of authors and publishers. In the 1970s, in his heyday, he was producing two large paintings a week, using oils and acrylic on board. He worked solidly on book jackets and magazine illustrations for the Readers Digest and Woman’s’ Weekly Library Series, as well as, on advertising posters turning his hand to stylised sixties imagery using bright, flat colours. But it is the romance and period scenes he painted for which he is remembered, created for authors, such as, Catherine Cookson, Josephine Cox, Margaret Kaufman, Jane Carrick and Freda Lightfoot.
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The images he created evoked a time and a place; he captured the spirit of the stories’ eponymous heroine and the charm of a recent past. As an artist, he was assured and knew exactly what he wanted to achieve using the same group of models to interpret the author’s story; they became friends and regular visitors to the family home. Among these models and the most recognisable was Gary Myers, the original Milk Tray Man.
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Thurston’s paintings illustrated the book covers and instalments of best-selling authors, including Jeffrey Archer, Dick Francis and Agatha Christie; Archer himself requested Len Thurston paint the cover for some of his most famous work.
He turned his talents to portraiture, too, and was commissioned by the TV Times and Radio Times, to paint six portraits of popular television stars, including the cast of Coronation Street, commencing in August 1970 with the indomitable Ena Sharples. It was to Len Thurston the Radio Times turned again for one of their most memorable front covers featuring Charles and Diana.
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Len Thurston was one of a circle of fellow illustrators and artists working in the artistically productive decades 50s, 60s and 70s. He was highly respected in his circle and John Heseltine, Jerry Fancett, Eric Earnshaw, Fred Laurent and Walter Wyles, were frequent visitors to the family home. He exhibited with his fellow artist, John Heseltine, and had numerous successful solo exhibitions of his work.
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Thurston officially retired in 2001, but never stopped painting until, in 2004, he developed a shake in his hand which, although indiscernible to others, made him feel frustrated as an artist and unhappy with the work he was producing. His son and eldest child, Paul, recalls his Father’s sadness and the moment he simply chose to ‘drop painting overnight’.
Thurston had spent his childhood in Southfields, Wimbledon, and, at the age of 23, married his wife, Kathleen, on 14th September, 1957; they lived in Crowborough, East Sussex, for a short time and Camberley in Surrey, where they stayed for 15 years. In 1980, he moved with his family to Seaford, East Sussex, an area he remembered fondly from the time he spent there as a child evacuee during World War II. It was here, on 10th March 2015, that he died of bowel cancer leaving Kathleen, his wife of nearly 60 years, and his four children Paul, Louise, Emma and Robert.
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Before Len Thurston died he destroyed work that he felt was ‘not good enough’, but much still survives and occasionally comes up for sale at Private Auctions. His large-scale paintings in acrylic and oil, others oil paintings on card, are sought-after works; each inscribed ‘Len Thurston’ in pencil on verso, together with detailed title information. They are a fine legacy of an exceptionally talented artist.