Leslie Van Der Sluys
“Wattle Bird”

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Description
Leslie Van Der Sluys (1939 – 2010) was an Australian artist born in Melbourne. His general art training was undertaken at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and later at the Melbourne State College. He also obtained a B.A (Art History and Classical Studies) from the University of Melbourne. He had been making lino cuts of floral and faunal subjects since he was at high school, where he was introduced to the genre by Sydney relief printmaker, Florence Higgs. Through her own work, she introduced him to the rich formal and decorative potential of Australian flora. After an informal apprenticeship as a landscape painter in both London and Melbourne with John Perceval during the 1960s, he taught art in secondary schools while pursuing plein air landscape painting around Heidelberg and the Yarra Valley on weekends.