Harry's work on Lucas has been awarded a 2019/20 Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, to develop his research as a book.
In 2020, Harry created the Lucas Lower Study research installation, inspired by a painting by Lucas, for a forthcoming TV documentary for the European channels ARTE and ZDF.
Harry received a Henry Moore Institute Research Fellowship in 2012, and curated an archival display at the HMI Library in 2017-18. In 2017, he completed his doctoral thesis on Lucas, for which he had received a funded PhD Research Studentship at Middlesex University.
Harry has given papers on Lucas at Sir John
Soane's Museum, the Middle East Technical University, the Henry Moore Institute, and King's College London.
The project has also established an important original archive of the artist.
Richard Cockle Lucas is an intriguing creative figure who fell into obscurity despite his own extraordinary efforts to build a place in the historical memory. As well as producing skilled sculptural works in wax, ivory, and stone, Lucas's multidisciplinary approach combined print-making, stained glass, photography, performance, building, archaeology, collecting, and writing. Lucas has often been described as a 'forger' because of the art-world controversy in which his name was linked to the wax bust of Flora acquired as a work of Leonardo da Vinci for the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin in 1909.
Further information:
Harry Willis Fleming, Artist, tower, books: the memory theatre of Richard Cockle Lucas (2016). PhD thesis, Middlesex University.. (Please note that because Harry is currently working on a book about Lucas, the thesis is embargoed for a period.)
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