Recollection: Stewart Lees

SIMON Fenwick's tribute to the artist STEWART LEES (Obituaries, 8 October) took me right back to Cellardyke Primary School in the East Neuk of Fife in the late 1950s, where Mr Lees was a visiting teacher of art.

He once told our class to do a painting of any subject except a human figure, and my response was a study in black and grey of a moonlit wall with a shadow reflected on it. When he scolded me for not following the instruction, I protested that it wasn't a figure, it was a shadow, and was relieved when a twinkling Mr Lees commended my juvenile flight of creativity.

At the Waid Academy, where he rejoiced in the nickname of "Stourie" Lees, his stentorian voice was used to good effect to silence my chatty 12-year-old self at the back of the art room.

It was unusual for a schoolteacher to make the transition to tertiary education, but at Easter 1960 he left us for a lectureship at Nottingham College of Art. This was seen as an accolade for our little school, but Mr Lees's lasting legacy is the fine stained-glass window he crafted, incorporating the school coat of arms, which awaited erection at the time of his departure. I am assured that it has since established itself as "the focal point of the school".

HARRY D WATSON