

My mother, who signed her paintings with her first name, Lesley, was born Lesley de Villiers. Later she was Lesley Cope, then, after 1960, she was Lesley Luitingh. She died in a road accident in 1989.
Tidying her effects after her death, I found a series of pencil drawings tucked into folders and hidden under a bed in her studio. For as long as I can remember, Lesley collected paper – cartridge, water-colour paper, papers with light textures for drawing – and these had accumulated in folders and drawers. At last she had found a use for them – paper now yellowed or blotched with age, slightly frayed at the edges from being moved, suitable for the recording of the old and infirm. There were ninety-six drawings and two reproductions of drawings when I assembled them all. The drawings were of an outdoor eye clinic at the Dera Baba Jaimal Singh, and are mostly of patients, the elderly blind who had come to the clinic in large numbers for cataract removal operations. These drawings avoided the pietism of her later paintings, they avoided the allegorical, and they avoided the cartoon-like abstractions that she developed for illustrating children’s books. They avoided technical skill, for though the execution was skilful, their ease transcended it. They stood as a single great work, a document of suffering and compassion finally integrating her life and her art. In these pictures of lovingly-observed affliction, the hearts and eyes of the blind strain heavenward for the light, through the body’s frailty.
Here are most of them. Click on them to see them bigger. Seriously. At this size they are impossible to appreciate.
Girl accepted for operation
Inoperable child
Rejected for operation
Preparation of tents.
A sevadar sews bandages.
Lime-wash is prepared for ward floors
Charan Singh in a crowded courtyard
Charan Singh and entourage
Charan Singh blesses food
Charan Singh with Dr Mathur
Arriving patients unroll bedding
Ward table
Sleeping patient
Being fed
Nurse tests blood pressure
Anxious patients await operation
Ward table
A family arrive
Leading each other
Leading each other
Leading each other
Old man on a bench
Sevadar
Water-buffalo from on the cart
Squirrel
Crow
Shoes
Kitchen detail
Doctor sampling the food
Scouring plates with ash
Drying utensils
Supper
Prasad
Woman having her lunch
Milk
Man with chapatis
Col Bal, in charge of security
Specialist doctor
Doctor looking at the guru
Another doctor
Prescription
Specialist doctor
New spectacles
A nap
Sevadar with blankets
Sevadar
Bedpan
Dressings
Dressings in place before operation
Dressings in place before operation
Dressings in place before operation
Having a shave
Having a shave
Post-operative patient
Post-operative patients
A joke
Post-operative patient
Hair washed pre-op
Pre operation
Man with cane
New specs
Post-operative patient
Eye drops
Two of Lesley’s friends
Post-operative patient
Post-operative patient
Post-operative patient
Woman with shawl
Carts