Laimonis Mierins Art for Sale and Sold Prices

b. 1929 - d. 2011

Abstract painter, Laimonis Mierins (or Lem to his students) was born Latvia in 1929 and came to England in 1947 as a political refugee and settled in Shipley. He died in 2011.

He worked in agriculture and the local textile industries and attended evening and weekend classes at Bradford College of Art. Laimonis later recalled that a fellow art student was David Hockney, who had said to him, ‘You know, you’re really quite good. You ought to go to art school. You’ve got real potential’ (see ‘source’, below, p.10).

Laimonis took Hockney’s advice. From Bradford, he studied for a NDD (National Diploma in Design) at Leeds College of Art (1960-64), then at Goldsmiths College, London, for his ATC (Art Teacher’s Certificate), awarded to him in 1965.

In 1965 he returned to teach at Jacob Kramer Art School, now Leeds College of Art, where he taught life drawing and was well-regarded by his students for his inspirational and eccentric teaching style. He retired from teaching in 1994. In 2004 he was awarded a Anglavs Eglitis and Veronika Janelsins Foundation, California, USA, prize for his life long activity in abstract painting.