Noel Leaver


Noel Harry Leaver was an English painter and teacher.

Early life and training

Leaver was born at the School House in Austwick, North Yorkshire where his father Peter was a teacher. Soon after the family returned to Worsthorne near Burnley in Lancashire. He was educated at St. James School and the Burnley School of Art. He won a National Scholarship to the Royal College of Art at age 16, receiving his full associateship at 21. Towards the end of this time he was awarded a Travelling Scholarship which enabled him to travel to Italy for 6 months where he studied painting and architecture. This was followed early the following year with a second travelling scholarship this time awarded by RIBA, the Owen Jones Studentship, which took him back to Italy and from there to North Africa.

Work

Primarily a watercolourist, he was known for hot blue skies, often in contrast with shadowed buildings drawn from experience gained during his travels in Europe and North Africa. Leaver was also known for his paintings of English cathedrals.
He also taught at the Halifax School of Art and then the Burnley School of Art until the mid-1930s.
Sixty-one Noel Leaver watercolours were left to Towneley Hall by the late Dr Peter Bracewell.