About Lillian Delevoryas

One of the biggest lessons Lillian learned in her Japanese sojourn was that the distinction, often made in the West, between ‘art’ and ‘design’ was a false one. As a result of this discovery, in the late Sixties, she turned from painting to textile art. Her work in fabric appliqué brought her to England in 1970 where she was commissioned to design hangings for luxury Mayfair apartments, for aristocrats and costumes for performers like David Bowie. Her garments were featured in the pages of London Vogue, and her self-designed wedding dress is now representing that era in the V & A Museum.

In 1972, when she married writer/philosopher Robin Amis, they left London to find more space for their work and ended up on the borders of Wales in the Forest of Dean. After a long absence from painting, Lillian again took up her brushes, this time inspired by the flowers in her garden. As with the influences of her Japanese sojourn, the English garden proved to be the next step forward in her journey. The Matisse influence re-emerged, more as a sort of complementary dialogue with him than a mimicking of his light and colour. Hilary Spurling, an expert on Matisse, now hangs a Delevoryas alongside an original Matisse in her home because she reckons that Lillian’s work is one of the few images that can successfully complement him.

By the 1980s, Robin’s interest in the early fathers of the church led him to the monasteries of Mount Athos in Greece. During his visits to the monasteries, Lillian used her time (as a woman she was barred from the Holy Mountain) to study Greek iconography and the art of the ancient Middle East. Working within that tradition over the next several years, she produced beautiful icons, as well as publishing a book, Visual Meditations based on St Gregory of Nyssa’s work, The Life of Moses.

Her Greek journeys produced another unexpected change of direction. While travelling, she found it easier to carry an iPad rather than carrying a lot of painting equipment. Back in her studio in Bristol, work on the iPad opened up a whole new way of working which revived her interest in textiles, her feel for things oriental, and the vivid colour of Matisse, resulting in a synthesis of original images reminiscent of Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo.

Another development in her work happened by a fortuitous coincidence. While working on the iPad, she hit a wrong button and everything changed from positive to negative – including the colours. This ‘happy accident’ had the effect of transforming her way of seeing colour, and as a result Lillian revisited a lifetime of images from her artistic past (as well as some new ones) to explore and pursue this startling departure in her work.

Necessary surgery removed the precise control she had always had in her brush hand and so, in her 80s, she turned, like Matisse, to collage. She continued to find the energy to keep working and creating new and exciting pictures. She produced more than fifty images on the Expulsion from Paradise series, which led her to consider other and more recent political expulsions. Then the theme of redemption, implicit in the Expulsion, led her to a consideration of role and significance of Mary Magdalene. While that particular impetus was largely spiritual and intellectual, Lillian, continued to explore techniques, searching for new ways of seeing, as well as the means to express them in collage. She went right on searching, almost to the day of her death, for her ‘moment of surprise’ or revelation.

As her audience, we have been, and still are, privileged to share her journey of spiritual discovery and join in her visual pilgrimage, searching for the epiphany, the breakthrough to new dimensions, the ‘moment of surprise and delight’. Even now, after her death in 2018, we can see that the work of Lillian Delevoryas still has the power to lead us to new ways of appreciating, exploring artistic technique, and novel ways of seeing. Through Lillian’s work we can experience delight in our world and receive sudden perceptions not just about beauty but also about what may lie in other dimensions. Lillian Delevoryas, as she always did, goes on taking us from the ‘how’ to the ‘wow’. We are all compelled to join her pilgrimage of delight.

Don Carleton, Bristol, 2018

Lillian has one son, Nicholas, and several step-children: Robert, Diana, Freya and Peter. She lost her beloved husband in 2014, and in the 3 years that followed, she completed her artistic life with two major collections: the Expulsion from Paradise series and the Mary Magdalene series.

Lillian approached her passing with the same grace, courage and attention to detail she gave to life – she even wrote the first part of this eulogy.

I met Lillian four years ago and that meeting changed my life. When I first phoned her, to get hold of some books published by Robin, it was three days after his death. Despite the fact that she had just lost her beloved husband she was gracious, generous and helpful – the needs of a fellow seeker were more important than her personal grief. Lillian’s support and encouragement of those around her brought out the best in everyone she met. She had the gift of true friendship, and through this gift she brought me to Orthodoxy and faith in the light of Christ, for which I shall be forever grateful.

We worked together on producing her first book, Visual Contemplations, which was inspired by her faith and the work of Saint Gregory of Nyssa, and which she published at the age of 83. We also re-edited and published one of Robin’s works, a translation and commentary on the writings of Saint Gregory Palamas, Holy Hesychia, and published a calendar of her last great artistic endeavour, which was inspired by Saint Mary Magdalene.

Her energy was indefatigable: in the last year of her life she completed the Mary Magdalene series of 85 pictures, which she regarded as the culmination of her life’s work. She also had three major exhibitions, exhibiting works from her Expulsion from Paradise series in Bath; a retrospective of her work with the Bovill and Walton gallery in Suffolk; and a very succesful exhibition of the In The Library series in Bristol. Her final exhibition was at home, for the West Bristol Arts Trail, following which her energy levels slowly ebbed away.

Lillian lived her life according to Dostoyevsky’s maxim, ‘Beauty will save the world’. And she died as she had lived. In notes about the death of her mother she wrote that in watching her mother die, “the heavenly and the earthly began to interpenetrate, the Kingdom of Heaven was suddenly very close. She released me from the fear of death. This is what she wanted … no sadness … no sorrow … no mourning.” Those of us who were privileged to watch Lillian die have all been touched by her desire to enter this last adventure in full awareness. She faced death with the faith that she would be united with our Lord, Jesus Christ, and reunited with her beloved husband. May we all face our earthly end with that same courage, conviction and calm acceptance.

Lillian expressed her art not only through her painting, but also through her life and family and friends, and ultimately in the manner of her passing. There are many who, like me, will continue rejoicing in her life through the friendships formed because of her. Lillian loved many and was loved by many more. She was an inspiration to all who knew her and although her absence will be sorely felt, her life and love will live on through her work and the ripples of love she has bequeathed us all.

May her memory be eternal!