Just like me, this artist had a dead body in his studio.

Estate has right to body found in deceased English painter's studio: coroner

LONDON (AP) - The embalmed body of a tramp - found hidden in a deceased portrait painter's studio - should be returned the artist's estate and could be placed on public display, a coroner ruled Monday.

The body of Edwin MacKenzie was found in a chest of drawers in Robert Lenkiewicz's studio in Plymouth, southern England, 10 days after the artist died of a heart attack in August.

MacKenzie, a friend and sometimes the subject of the painter, had died in a hospital of natural causes on Nov. 2, 1984, at age 72. Lenkiewicz, who took custody of the body, had refused to tell authorities where it was.

An inquest heard that MacKenzie had no living relatives to provide a burial, and on Monday Plymouth and South Devon Coroner Nigel Meadows said the body should go back to the executor of the Lenkiewicz estate.

He said the executor could have the body cremated or transferred to the Lenkiewicz Foundation, the charity responsible for the artist's paintings and books. It would be up to the foundation to decide what to do with the body.

"Provided they comply with health and safety regulations and don't outrage public decency, it is possible that they could retain the body on some sort of public display," he added.

MacKenzie had left no will. A death certificate gave his profession as "artist's assistant (retired)."

The pair met when MacKenzie, who was widely known as Diogenes, was living in a concrete barrel at a garbage dump on the outskirts of Plymouth. The tramp featured in a 1960 series of paintings by Lenkiewicz entitled Vagrancy.

Lenkiewicz had refused to tell the local council where MacKenzie's body was, insisting his friend had wanted his body to be embalmed and preserved.

After Lenkiewicz died, executors of his estate gave officials information which led to a search of the studio.

One of Lenkiewicz's paintings featuring MacKenzie - The Four Tramps and Jacob's Ladder - sold at an auction last month for the equivalent of $108,000 Cdn.

© Copyright 2002 The Canadian Press