Sir Leslie Marr, landscape artist and racing driver. Leslie was born in Durham to Amelia (nee Thompson), a pioneering early motorist, and Col John Marr, who had been an officer in the first world war, and was managing director of the Laing shipbuilding firm in Sunderland. Aged 10 Leslie inherited a baronetcy from his grandfather Sir James Marr on his death in 1932 (his father having died the previous year) but did not use the title.
Marr was educated at Shrewbury School and Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he studied engineering. This was interrupted by WWI during which he served as a Technician in the Royal Air Force. After the war, Marr attended Heatherley's Art School in London and subsequently studied under David Bomberg at the Borough Polytechnic. In early. 1948 he was elected secretary of the new Borough Group of artists with Bomberg as president. Fellow members included Dennis Creffield, Cliff Holden, Dorothy Mead and Miles Richmond. The group ceased in 1950 however Marr continued to paint. Over many decades he painted in remote areas in Scotland, Wales, Devon, France, Greece and New Zealand, in often challenging weather conditions. In the early 1950s, he had a second career as a moderately successful racing driver, participating in two Formula One world championship grands prix.
In 1948, Marr marrried Dinora Mendelson, daughter of the art dealer Jacob Mendelson and artist Lilian Holt, whose second husband was Marr's former teacher, David Bomberg.
Marr had many one-man shows over the years, culminating in 'Leslie Marr at Ninety' in 2012, at the Piano Nobile gallery, London. He had a calm, thoughtful temperament, and was a witty conversationalist to the end. He is quoted as saying, "Painting is for me an exploration, and one of the most important maxims for an explorer is, 'No preconception'. This means no reliance on other people's ideas, teaching, theories. To have been taught by a great teacher is indeed a privilege. One should absorb the teaching, taking from it what one feels that one needs, but then one must go ones own way, or remain forever trapped in one particular system."
Marr is primarily known for his landscapes and still life in a mainly expressionist style.