Sculptor in various materials, painter, printmaker, draughtsman and teacher, born in Glasgow. He studied at Manchester School of Art, drawing with Harry Sutcliffe and Ted Roocroft for sculpture, then at Slade School of Fine Art with A H Gerrard for sculpture, 1956–60. He taught at various art colleges, 1960–89, including Royal Academy Schools, resigning as keeper in 1998, Slade School, Goldsmiths’ and Sir John Cass. McComb (pronounced comb) was awarded the Jubilee Prize at RA in 1977, gained its, Korn Ferry Prize in 1988 and was elected RA in 1990, its keeper in 1995. He said that his work, signed with the monogram L M, was “sometimes to me a kind of singing in shapes and colours, sometimes light, sometimes dark. Life contains many opposites.
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” McComb destroyed most of his work up to 1976. He was first shown in London at Human Clay, selected by R B Kitaj for Arts Council, 1976. Was also in British Painting 1952–1977, at RA in 1977; British Sculpture in the Twentieth Century, Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1981; Representation Abroad, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, America, 1986; Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, 1990; and The Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, 1992. There was a solo touring show by Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, and Arts Council, 1982, later ones including Browse & Darby, 1993, and a retrospective at Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, 2004. McComb, representing Britain, was one of a select group of international artists commissioned by the Vatican to produce sacred coin-medals to celebrate the Millennium, his design depicting Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Basil Hume. Arts Council, British Council, Tate Gallery and other public collections hold examples. Lived in London.
Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)
