Lenton Parr


Thomas Lenton Parr AM was an Australian sculptor and teacher.

Sculptor

Born in East Coburg, Victoria, Lenton Parr spent eight years in the Royal Australian Air Force before enrolling to study sculpture at the Royal Melbourne Technical College, then worked in England 1955–57 as an assistant to Henry Moore. There he was influenced by Reg Butler and Eduardo Paolozzi to work with enamelled steel structures, which was to become his lifelong specialty. After his return to Melbourne he showed at Peter Bray Gallery in 1957, and embarked on a career in art education.

Art educator

Parr was Head of Sculpture at RMIT, then Head of Prahran College of Technology in a $1.5 million building completed as he arrived. He appointed staff who became influential Australian art and was held in high esteem by staff, but his fine art philosophy clashed with the vocationally-oriented aims of the College Principal Alan Warren, who acted unsuccessfully to have him removed by advertising his job, prompting an inquiry by the Minister. Though his appointment at Prahran was upheld, he left, effective 31 January 1969, to take up the role of Principal at the National Gallery School, leading to his appointment as director of the Victorian College of the Arts when it replaced the Gallery School

Recognition

He was a member of the Victorian Sculptors' Society and its seventh president. Around 1960 he joined with Clifford Last, Inge King, Vincas Jomantas and Teisutis Zikaras to form a splinter group which exhibited together as the 'Centre Five'. In 1967, the group split from the Society, which never recovered from the departure of so many of its prominent members.
In 1977, he was invested with the Order of Australia for his services to sculpture and the arts. He was awarded Honorary Doctorate in Arts in 1992. A major monograph on his work was published in 1999. The Lenton Parr Library of the University of Melbourne was named for him.

Selected exhibitions

  • 1956 Obelisk Gallery, London
  • 1957 Peter Bray Gallery, Melbourne
  • 1958 Victorian Sculptors Society
  • 1958 Gallery A, Melbourne
  • 1961 Mildura Art Gallery
  • 1961 Musee Rodin, Paris, 2nd Int'l Expo of Contemporary Sculpture
  • 1962 Hungry Horse Gallery, Sydney
  • 1963 Sculpture Today, National Gallery of Victoria and Regional Galleries
  • 1963 Centre 5, Newcastle City Art Gallery, NSW
  • 1964-65 Recent Australian Sculpture, Touring Australian State Galleries
  • 1964 Centre 5, Hungry Horse Gallery, Sydney
  • 1966 Australian Sculpture Centre, Canberra
  • 1968 Bonython Art Gallery, Sydney
  • 1969 Bonython Art Gallery, Sydney
  • 1973 Centre 5, Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria
  • 1973 Centre 5, McCelland Art Gallery, Victoria
  • 1977 Ray Hughes Gallery, Brisbane
  • 1978 Powell Street Gallery, Melbourne
  • 1981 Axiom Gallery, Melbourne
  • 1984-85 Lenton Parr Sculpture: Retrospective, National Gallery of Victoria
  • 1987 Christine Abrahams Gallery, Melbourne
  • 1988-89 Manly Bicentennial Sculpture Commission
  • 1990 Melbourne International Festival, Melbourne
  • 1990 Christine Abrahams Gallery, Melbourne
  • 1990 Melbourne Sculptural Triennial, Melbourne
  • 1990 A-Z Gallery, Tokyo
  • 1992 Irving Galleries, Sydney
  • 1993 Christine Abrahams Gallery, Melbourne
  • 1995 Australia Felix, Benalla, Victoria
  • 1996 A Sculpture Walk in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne
  • 1997 Christine Abrahams Gallery, Melbourne
  • 1998 The Mentors: Work by the 6 Deans of the Victorian College of the Arts School of Art, Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne

    Represented in collections

Represented in most State Gallery and other Public Collections and in various Institutional and Private Collections including: