An amateur artist all of his life Lionel Rouse was most active after retirement. His range of paintings included maritime, still life, topographical and London street scenes. He obviously had a strong interest in motoring and produced excellent paintings of motor racing. Several of his paintings were used by greetings card manufacturers and at least two of his paintings were used by BEN (automotive industry employees’ charity) for a Christmas card. Lionel Rouse was born in 1911 and brought up in the Cold harbour Lane area of Balham/Brixton where the family lived and traded as auctioneers, furniture, antique and art dealers. From an artistic family his uncle was R W (Robert William) Arthur Rouse (born in 1867), a celebrated English landscape painter. Robert was a member of the Royal Society of British Artists from 1889 until his death in 1952. Robert exhibited at the Royal Academy and several other places, as well as illustrating books. Another brother Frederick (born 1869) was also an artist who exhibited at the Royal Academy. Also Eugene born 1874 is known to have painted portraits and landscapes. The young Lionel Rouse would have had plenty of family encouragement from his uncles for his early artistic endeavours and attended the Lambeth School of Art. In his working life Lionel was a Design Engineer and married Winifred Iris Chew in 1934, she was always known as Iris. Iris was 3 years younger than Lionel and was a childhood star of Silent Movies. Her stage name was Bunty Fosse and together they had a family of three daughters.
Lionel Rouse died in 1984 of lung cancer, his wife Iris died just a month later.
