He was only a Bedales student for two years but the impact of that period on Sylvain Lefebvre’s life and career cannot be measured in time alone. In this interview, Sylvain outlines the exhilaration of his multicultural upbringing and the corresponding gloominess of life at school in France before coming to Bedales. We learn of how Bedales set him on the path to a successful career, first as an illustrator and latterly as a fully-fledged painter and why the school remains as relevant to him now as it has ever been.
The artistic environment into which Sylvain Lefebvre was born and grew up in France was a signpost towards many aspects of his future. “My father was a cultural multi-tasker,” Sylvain explains. “He acted in the cinema, did some photography, had an interest in almost everything, in fact – but his real métier was the theatre, where he most often worked as a producer. My mother came from a different background – her family were mostly industrialists who came from the east of France – and her great love was dancing. It was because of that passion that she met my father through the theatre.”
Although Sylvain’s parents separated when he was just two, they remained on amicable terms and Sylvain enjoyed the best aspects of two extraordinary worlds. “I lived with Mum near Paris and from time to time my father would come and pick me up,” he recalls. “I would then stay with him as he worked, watching how everything in the theatre came together to make a good production. It was an inspiring, Bohemian lifestyle, which to a young child seemed magical, almost like a circus.”
Back at home with his mother life was scarcely less exciting for Sylvain: “My step-father was a Brazilian, extremely international in his outlook and was heavily involved in show-jumping, where he was good friends with some of the legends of the sport. My mother used to help train these horses so home became something like a five-star hotel for these equine athletes! Brazilian culture became central to my life, including the ability to speak Portuguese.”
The only blot on the landscape for Sylvain in this idyllic childhood was school. “That’s where I came down to earth every Monday morning,” he says. “I suffered and struggled quite a lot in France. As hard as I tried, I always had the feeling that I was a misfit, always an outsider both at the village school and later on in my education. In fact I was dyslexic, although I only realised that when I was a lot older. So I started to draw, which was my imaginary world and my refuge – battle scenes, aeroplanes and so on.”
At the age of 11 it was decided to send Sylvain to the UK on a language course to improve his spoken English. “My brother Nicolas was already at Bedales and when I arrived there for the language course it was only supposed to be for a month,” he says. “But I absolutely adored it and ended up joining Middle School when I was almost 12 years old despite still having very little English language ability. I’d always loved the countryside and I couldn’t believe how beautiful this place was or that it could really be a school at all! This was a new world and although I was far from home and so young, I was never lonely because the other students were so kind to me. My brother was quite well-known at Bedales, which also helped me; he was the ‘successful French guy’, with a talent for woodwork, sport and music (he’s a professional singer now). He was also nearly seven years older than me but introduced me to all his friends and was basically a guardian-like figure in this new world of boarding school.”
Bedales was so different from any other school that I've seen"
The academic side of Bedales life remained a struggle for Sylvain but he compensated in other areas, developing his musical and artistic talents. “I couldn’t understand all that much but I was astonished by the quality of all the classes,” he reflects. “Music was the first thing that completely blew me away; every room in the music block seemed to have a different sound and pop music and dancing seemed to be everywhere. This was the punk/new wave era, which was a big deal for all of us. I remember my friends trying to explain the lyrics of songs from that era and a bit earlier – ‘Get off My Cloud’ was one! In fact, it was also another unconventional way for me to learn to speak English.”
Meanwhile Sylvain was learning to hone his artistic talents with appropriate diligence. “I had a great art teacher and I was constantly astonished and inspired by the standards of my fellow students,” he remarks. “To see what was possible at such a young age was like a revelation to me. It was the same in sculpture or photography; I just felt pushed to work really hard to develop the talent that I possessed. Sub-consciously, Bedales was opening my horizons and at the same time it was encouraging me to integrate a certain sense of discipline into my life. You couldn’t get too cocky, you learned to take responsibility for what you did and you became more open-minded and mature as a result. I would compare Bedales with an inoculation from which I felt the benefit for many years afterwards.”
Bedales was all about encouragement. There was always a place for every student, always some area in which you can make progress, no matter how high or low you may be in your class.
Sadly, Sylvain’s Bedalian idyll only lasted for two years. “I had a special French teacher to help me try and get to the right academic level but it was just too difficult for me and I had to move on,” he says. “It felt like a rupture in my life; Bedales was where my friends lived, where I had enjoyed my first flirtations with girls, where I had enjoyed picnics and walks in the forest. It was not the kind of thing that you found at school in France but I thought that this freedom with structure was normal for England…until I moved to Hastings, which wasn’t the greatest place in those days. They were the early Thatcher years and it seemed dark, depressing and even quite violent after the bliss of Bedales.”
Despite the shock of leaving such a cherished place Sylvain made the best of his situation. “I learned to be patient, started to read, write and speak English more fluently, worked pretty hard and even passed a few exams in Hastings,” he says. “After that it was off to art school in London, where I really learned about technique from some fine art tutors – people like Nicholas Cochrane. When I returned to France, I started producing some of my own stuff while I was doing a year of different courses (including stage design) and more studying at art school. My professional life in art began as an illustrator – I had always loved comic strips, which have always been a really important part of French culture and for a few years I worked on a few for various newspapers.”
All the time, however, the ambition to become a full-time painter had lain dormant within Sylvain. At the age of 35, the ambition was finally realised and over the past two decades it has reached full flower. Describing himself as an explorer of his own personal universe or an ‘imaginary wanderer in search of new lands’, Sylvain has combined artwork that is inspired by various international influences, history and popular culture, often using synthetic polymer and gel paints, with extraordinarily original collages. His work has been exhibited far and wide, most notably at the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery.
“All the different elements that I learned when I was at Bedales now make sense to me,” Sylvain says as he looks back over the last 20 years and more. “Somehow, Bedales is even more relevant to me today than it ever has been. Many of the lessons that I absorbed there took time to come to me and it’s only now that I have really found my place in the world. I’ve had a family to look after so I haven’t often thought about this in too much depth but I guess that I am actually a little proud of the way in which my life has turned out.”
It was where I learned the most important lesson of all – that with a little effort and curiosity, everything is possible.”
“Bedales was so very different from any other school that I’ve ever seen,” Sylvain continues. “At school in France, if you didn’t – or couldn’t – get things right then you suffered the consequences. Bedales was all about encouragement. There was always a place for every student, always some area in which you can make progress, no matter how high or low you may be in your class. That means so much to any young person and it still does to me now. I still loom back to Bedales as an inspiration even though I haven’t been back to the school for many years and was unable to attend my year reunion. It was where I learned the most important lesson of all – that with a little effort and curiosity, everything is possible.”
Sylvain was interviewed by James Fairweather in Autumn 2022