Leslie Cole (artist)

Leslie Cole (11 August 1910 – 1976) was an artist and teacher. He served as a war artist from 1942 to 1946 when he recorded the Belsen Concentration Camp survivors and victims. His wife was born Barbara Harris and she was a principal witness when a Norfolk rector was defrocked in the 1930s.

Early life
Cole was born in Swindon in 1910 and studied lithography and murals at a local college before attending the Royal College of Art. He exhibited with the lithography group Senefelder Club in 1934. In 1937 he was teaching at Hull College of Art and the following year he married Brenda Harvey who had been born Barbara Harris. His wife had been an artists' model and a friend of Dylan Thomas but she was earlier involved in a famous scandal involving Harold Davidson, the Rector of Stiffkey who was defrocked for immorality with prostitutes. Barbara / Brenda sent a fourteen-page letter to the Bishop of Norwich about Davidson and said that she had "more to tell". She gave evidence at Davidson's trial in 1932.

Second World War
When war broke out he joined the RAF but had to leave on medical grounds. Cole was still teaching but he made an effort to obtain work as a war artist from Sir Kenneth Clark and the War Artists' Advisory Committee. He even took perilous work. He was successful in 1942 and starting in Malta where he saw the end of the siege. He eventually went to Burma, Malaya, Normandy, Germany, Greece and Gibraltar. In 1944 he had to resign his position and in July he was made an honorary temporary captain in the Royal Marines so that he could continue his work. He was sent to Singapore to record the state of the prisoners of war there and he was then chosen with three others to witness and record the liberation of the Belsen Concentration Camp.

Later life
Cole did not stop being a war artist until 1946 when he took a job teaching art at Brighton College of Art. The college was to become Brighton Polytechnic and Cole was still working there in 1976 when he died. He had drunk heavily and this was put down to his war time experiences. His wife was still with him and she lived on until 2003. A recent biography says that his wife's past was only revealed to the family in the years before her death and it is possible that Cole was never aware of his wife's former role.

Legacy
In 1985 the Imperial War Museum created an exhibition of Cole's War artist work. Two of his later paintings appeared on Antiques Roadshow in 2009 when their value was estimated at 6,000 pounds each by paintings expert Rupert Maas. Cole has 25 works in the Imperial War Museum as well as over 70 others which are in public ownership.