For over half a century Michael Leonard has proved to be one of Britain's most versatile and popular artists. Born in 1933, by the late 1960s he had come to public attention as a talented illustrator, with his images featuring prominently in the Sunday Times Colour Magazine and on book covers. By the mid-1970s he had devoted himself to fine art and since then has been regarded as one of Britain's leading photorealistic painters, especially acclaimed for his nudes, which combine precise brushwork and luminous intensity with abstract qualities of design. He has appeared in group exhibitions as well as one-man shows internationally. His series 'Portraits in Time' shows his sitters depicted in the style of the Old Masters, while in the mid-1980s he was commissioned to paint the Queen's picture to celebrate her sixtieth birthday, his portrait of her now hangs in London's National Portrait Gallery. Apart from portraiture, he has long been celebrated as a wonderfully assured painter of landscape and dynamic studies of the human form and as an illustrator and photographer. Patrick Bade's intimate yet comprehensive study of the artist's career reveals his artistic development in all its variety. Lavishly illustrated with paintings, drawings and photographs, this is a seminal book for admirers of his work"--