Costume Design for Tamburlaine the Great

Leslie George Hurry was born in St John’s Wood and educated at Haberdashers’ School, the St John’s Wood Art School and at the Royal Academy Schools. He left the Royal Academy Schools in 1931 and after working for a time as a muralist spent time in Brittany and Paris. He returned to England in 1939 and moved to an isolated cottage in Thaxted, Essex where he produced two books of inticate automatic drawings that were exhibited at the Redfern Gallery and lead to his acclaim as a surrealist and neo-romantic artist. However, Hurry is best known for his designs for costume and stage designs. His first theatre work was for a production of Hamlet for the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in 1942. He subsequently worked for Sadler’s Wells, the Old Vic, Aldwych Theatre, Glyndebourne, the Royal Opera House, the Royal Shakespeare Company and many others both in this country and overseas. Works by him are in the collection of the Tate Gallery, Victoria & Albert Museum, National Portrait Gallery, Cheltenham Art Gallery and the National Galleries of Scotland. The present work is a costume design for the King of Natolia in the Old Vic’s 1951 production of Tamburlaine the Great, directed by Tyrone Guthrie.