My friend Michael Leonard, who has died aged 90, joined the agency Artist Partners as a jobbing illustrator in the 1950s and was constantly in demand until he decided to become a full-time painter in the early 1970s.
Michael was a superb technician and produced memorable work, including covers for the Sunday Times magazine with portraits of, among others, Paul Getty and Mick Jagger. The magazine also commissioned him to imagine how celebrities might look as they aged, with results that were often uncannily accurate in their predictions.
He was surprised to be asked to paint Queen Elizabeth II in 1985 and his first reaction was “No”. Upon reflection, he agreed, if she would accept his terms: no regalia, informal dress and with one of her dogs. To his surprise the Queen did agree and the resulting picture, now in the National Portrait Gallery, has become very popular. Michael resisted all subsequent attempts to draw him in as a “society painter” and returned to producing the paintings he wanted to make, until old age and a shaking hand made this no longer possible.
He was born in Bangalore in India to British parents, Douglas, who was in the British army, and Kathleen (nee Murphy). After Douglas died of septicaemia in 1940, Kathleen married Dick Hollins, a stockbroker. Michael and his mother travelled to Britain in 1945, after the war in Europe had ended, so he could continue his education at Stonyhurst College in Lancashire. After his national service he enrolled at St Martin’s School of Art (now part of Central Saint Martins), in London, in 1955 to study illustration.
In 1970 he began moving from illustration to become a professional painter. I met Michael in 1980 as this new career was becoming established. The demand for his work meant that he need only accept commissions that he wanted to do. His Portraits in Time series, in which he imagined friends into an earlier period, demonstrates his graphic skills as well as the range of his friendships.
Like many gay men of his generation Michael delighted in the changes in law and in attitudes towards same-sex relationships. His tender and affectionate drawings were used in Edmund White’s groundbreaking book The Joy of Gay Sex in 1977.
He is survived by his half-brother, Brian.
