Artist Profile

‘The Michelangelo of Chiswick’

Lewis Frederick Lupton, oldest son of 7 children, was born in 1909 in Fulham, London. The family moved to Sheffield, Yorkshire in 1911 when his father Frederick Lupton, a draper, found employment in a large department store. It was in Sheffield that Lupton grew up, and at fourteen won a scholarship to Sheffield College of Arts and Craft for seven years, 2 years on the general course and 4 years in the painting school with Anthony Betts. This was the fulfilment of a childhood dream, for as he once said ‘from the age of 5 I had made up my mind that I must be an artist’

In June 1934 He married fellow art student Phyllis Joan Ainger and they set up home in St Johns Wood, London.

Work at the studio was plentiful and varied; Galleons for Marconi, book jackets, posters.

While at Askew-Younge Lewis painted ‘one or two oil paintings in my spare time, with a view to sending them to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

1939 came – then I produced a painting, first of a series, which seemed to have something my

previous work did not have. This one was accepted straight away, along with 2 others. This continued for the next 10 years 1940 – 1949 - twenty-one paintings in the RA summer show.’

Askew Younge foundered In September 1940, and in November the Luptons were

bombed out of their flat in Grove Park, Chiswick. Their first child Jude was buried

in the wreckage and was brought out with only a scratch.

After a brief spell in Bedford, the family returned to Chiswick, and Lupton, a

conscientious objector, started work as a self-employed commercial artist.

In 1941 Fritz Keil, owner of City Display Organisation, contacted him after seeing

2 books which he had illustrated for Oxford University Press, ‘Machines’ and ‘Ships’.

Keil obtained work for him throughout the war years with the Ministry of Food,

Ministry of Fuel and Power, and major industries including GEC and ICI.

He spent the rest of the war on exhibition and display work, exhibitions and posters of all kinds.

‘In peace time it would have been distinguished work’.

In 1948 Lupton was persuaded by his assistant to enter a competition to design an Exhibition ‘Is this the Way?’ for the British and Foreign Bible Society at St Bride’s Institute, the first of 3 exhibitions. This paved the way for working with other Christian organisations.

1950s Scripture Union

In his work for Scripture Union Lupton developed his characteristic style of

colourful book jackets with scraper board illustrations. Books he

illustrated included several by well known author Patricia St John;

‘Treasures of the Snow’ (Patricia St John 1950) is still in print today.

1960s - 1990s

In the early 1960s, with a decrease in demand for

commercial work, Lupton’s career took a new direction.

With more time to devote to his own work he and Joan

went on sketching tours, and travelled the country with

mobile exhibitions of their oils and water colours. Towns

visited included Norwich, Cirencester, Stroud, Buxton and

Exmouth as well as Chiswick.

Scripture Union held an annual

competition for aspiring writers. in1964

LFL submitted a children’s historical

novel ‘Captured’. It was commended but

not published, so he then illustrated and

published it. ( Fauconberg Press 1965).

In the 1960s Lupton engaged in a labour of love - of biblical proportions. ‘He

transformed his home in Chiswick with a series of murals with a religious

theme, a vast panorama illustrating biblical scenes from Genesis to Revelation.

The 30ft by 20ft painting covered the ceiling of the living-room, and took 10

years to complete.’ Completed 1970.

He became something of a local celebrity, with frequent visits from local

secondary school students to view the ceiling.

1966 -Volume 1 The History of the Geneva Bible

In 1966 LFL published the first volume

‘The Quarrel’, under his own imprint of The Olive Tree.

First of a series, it was LFL’s primary project for

the next 30 years.

This is how he describes the beginning of his fascination

with the Geneva Bible and the stories of the people

involved in its production:

The initial aim was to produce a series of 5

books, 1 volume a year, which he sold to

around 500 subscribers. Each book was

profusely illustrated, beautifully bound,

with colourful dust jackets.

After volume 7 he realised that

typesetting, one of the major costs involved

in production, would be eliminated if he

wrote the books by hand.

Subsequently he wrote and illustrated

each page by hand, ‘a page a day’, and enjoyed the discipline.

As his interest in the subject grew, so the number of volumes increased, to include biographies and

the stories of other translations of the Bible up to and including the Authorised Version. He was

primarily an artist, not an academic, but unearthed new material in the course of his research

which enhanced the series.

One of the beauties of the series was LFL’s use of scraper board illustrations and line drawings

around the subject, many of which were scaled down versions of his own water colour sketches of

various churches and places associated with the history.

The dust jacket of each volume was meticulously planned and drawn, a different vibrant colour

chosen for each book. End papers again were often maps, sometimes redrawn from original

sources. The series spanned a 20th Century revolution in the printing industry. The first used

traditional wood and metal blocks, which then developed into blocks on a sheet, then eventually

into photo litho, which gave Lupton free reign to design the layout of each page.

At the age of 84 Lupton published and distributed the last in the series, Volume 25, ‘Not unto Us’

in 1994.

A final manuscript of Volume 26 on Cranmer remained unpublished on Lupton’s death death in 1996.

Joan, his wife and life long support, a talented artist in her own right, passed away in 1998.