Christopher le Brun
Encyclopedia
Christopher Le Brun is known primarily as a painter. He is also a dedicated printmaker, for which he was elected to the Royal Academy
in 1996 (category engraver), coincidentally the year in which he made his first sculpture. He studied painting at the Slade School of Art (1970–74) and Chelsea School of Art (1974–1975). Since then he has taught and lectured extensively at art schools throughout the country, in particular until 1984 at Brighton, The Slade, Chelsea, and Wimbledon. In 1982 he participated in the influential "Zeitgeist" exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin. Following this he had many solo exhibitions in galleries both in Europe and the United States, such as Sperone Westwater, Rudolf Zwirner, Nigel Greenwood
, LA Louver and Marlborough Fine Art
. Le Brun has exhibited in many significant surveys of international art, including "Nuova Immagine", Milan 1981, "An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture", MoMA
New York 1984, "Avant-garde in the Eighties", Los Angeles 1987 and "Contemporary Voices", MoMA New York 2005. He was one of the five artists shortlisted for the Angel of the South
project in January 2008. In 2011 he was the chief co-ordinator of the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. He has studios in London and Suffolk.
One of the best introductions to his work was written by the late Bryan Robertson, former director of the Whitechapel Gallery
, for the exhibition Christopher Le Brun Paintings 1991-1994 at Marlborough Fine Art, London.
"In the last twenty years, Christopher Le Brun has created some of the most beautiful and effulgent paintings made by an English artist in my lifetime: strong paintings, often on a grand scale, with highly specific imagery expressed in a modern equivalent to the grand manner and painted with such exuberant panache that one accepts, almost without question, their extraordinary content. On consistent terms which Le Brun has made uniquely his own, he has created a considerable body of work in large or quite small paintings, with drawings and many engravings of inventive refinement which, put all together, makes a visible and credible world of its own. An intensity of visual concept in its broad sense sustains an oddly relaxed, divergent and exploratory tension derived from the calculated and extremely variable deployment of each brushmark in its placement on the canvas. He offers us a feast for the eye demanded by Delacroix as the first requisite of any painting before it has meaning. Some of the ways in which Le Brun deploys pigment appear to stem from early Guston and, before that, from the late Monet that we encounter in the Musee Marmotton - but the world celebrated by Le Brun in this use of paint stems in essence from the romantic past of poetry, myth and legend."
in Santa Barbara, Michael Woolworth Publications in Paris and Graphic Studio in Dublin.
In 2005 a new and extensive series of prints, the 50 Etchings was published by Paragon Press. Launched initially at Frieze
, it has been exhibited in Cologne, New York and the Original Print Fair in London. Sets have recently been acquired by the Fitzwilliam Museum
, Cambridge and the British Museum
, London.
His continuing interest in monotype dates from 1986 when during the first of several visits to the Tullis studio in California, he made amongst other works, a 60 part print measuring over 15'x40' in two days. A more recent monotype project inaugurated the Artists International Print Project at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice in 2002, working with the printers Simon Marsh and Michael Taylor of Paupers Press.
Notable publications include Seven Lithographs 1989, 50 Etchings 1990, Four Riders 1993, Wagner 1994, Motif Light 1998, Paris Lithographs 2000, Fifty Etchings 2005.
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney /
Arts Council of Great Britain /
Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo /
Berardo Museum, Lisbon /
Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery /
The British Council, London /
British Museum, London /
Chester Beatty Library, Dublin /
Contemporary Art Society, London /
Courtauld Gallery, London /
Department of the Environment, London /
Falmouth Art Gallery /
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge /
Hamilton Art Gallery, Ontario /
Harris Museum, Preston /
Harvard University Art Museums /
High Museum, Atlanta /
Ile de France Regional Fund /
Isle of Man Arts Council /
John Creasey Museum, Salisbury /
Liverpool Cathedral /
Malmo Doershus, Malmo /
Maclaurin Art Gallery, Ayr /
McNay Museum, San Antonio, Texas /
Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo /
Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego /
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney /
Museum of Modern Art, New York /
Museum of London /
National Portrait Gallery, London /
New Art Gallery, Walsall /
Power Gallery, University of Sydney /
Rooseum, Malmo /
Royal Academy, London /
Royal Mint, Cardiff /
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh /
Southampton Museum and Art Gallery /
Southwark Art Collection /
Spencer Collection, New York City Public Library /
Stavanger Art Gallery, Stavanger /
Stirlingshire Educational Trust /
Swindon Museum and Art Gallery /
Tate Gallery, London /
University of Liverpool /
University of Tasmania, Hobart /
University of Texas, Austin /
Victoria and Albert Museum, London /
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool /
Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles /
Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester /
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
in 1996 (category engraver), coincidentally the year in which he made his first sculpture. He studied painting at the Slade School of Art (1970–74) and Chelsea School of Art (1974–1975). Since then he has taught and lectured extensively at art schools throughout the country, in particular until 1984 at Brighton, The Slade, Chelsea, and Wimbledon. In 1982 he participated in the influential "Zeitgeist" exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin. Following this he had many solo exhibitions in galleries both in Europe and the United States, such as Sperone Westwater, Rudolf Zwirner, Nigel Greenwood
Nigel Greenwood
Nigel Greenwood is a former professional footballer who played in the English Football League.-Preston North End:...
, LA Louver and Marlborough Fine Art
Marlborough Fine Art
Marlborough Fine Art was founded in London, England, in 1946 by Frank Lloyd and Harry Fischer.In 1963, a gallery was opened in Manhattan, New York, USA,on Madison Avenue and 57th Street, which later relocated in 1971 to its present location, 40 West 57th Street. The gallery operates another New...
. Le Brun has exhibited in many significant surveys of international art, including "Nuova Immagine", Milan 1981, "An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture", MoMA
Moma
Moma may refer to:* Moma , an owlet moth genus* Moma Airport, a Russian public airport* Moma District, Nampula, Mozambique* Moma River, a right tributary of the Indigirka River* Google Moma, the Google corporate intranet...
New York 1984, "Avant-garde in the Eighties", Los Angeles 1987 and "Contemporary Voices", MoMA New York 2005. He was one of the five artists shortlisted for the Angel of the South
Angel of the South
The White Horse at Ebbsfleet, formerly the Ebbsfleet Landmark, colloquially the Angel of the South, is a planned white horse statue to be built in the Ebbsfleet Valley in Kent, England...
project in January 2008. In 2011 he was the chief co-ordinator of the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. He has studios in London and Suffolk.
One of the best introductions to his work was written by the late Bryan Robertson, former director of the Whitechapel Gallery
Whitechapel Gallery
The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, it was founded in 1901 as one of the first publicly-funded galleries for temporary exhibitions in London, and it has a long...
, for the exhibition Christopher Le Brun Paintings 1991-1994 at Marlborough Fine Art, London.
"In the last twenty years, Christopher Le Brun has created some of the most beautiful and effulgent paintings made by an English artist in my lifetime: strong paintings, often on a grand scale, with highly specific imagery expressed in a modern equivalent to the grand manner and painted with such exuberant panache that one accepts, almost without question, their extraordinary content. On consistent terms which Le Brun has made uniquely his own, he has created a considerable body of work in large or quite small paintings, with drawings and many engravings of inventive refinement which, put all together, makes a visible and credible world of its own. An intensity of visual concept in its broad sense sustains an oddly relaxed, divergent and exploratory tension derived from the calculated and extremely variable deployment of each brushmark in its placement on the canvas. He offers us a feast for the eye demanded by Delacroix as the first requisite of any painting before it has meaning. Some of the ways in which Le Brun deploys pigment appear to stem from early Guston and, before that, from the late Monet that we encounter in the Musee Marmotton - but the world celebrated by Le Brun in this use of paint stems in essence from the romantic past of poetry, myth and legend."
Exhibitions
- 1980 - first solo exhibition, Nigel Greenwood GalleryNigel Greenwood (art dealer)Nigel Palin Greenwood was an erudite and independent-minded art dealer.-Early career:Nigel Greenwood was educated at Christ Church, Oxford and at the Courtauld Institute . He started his career in the art world at the Axiom Gallery in London...
, London - 1982 - "Zeitgeist", Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin
- 1983 - Sperone Westwater, New York
- 1985 - Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol
- 1987 - "Avant-garde in the Eighties", Los Angeles
- 1988 - DAADGerman Academic Exchange ServiceThe German Academic Exchange Service or DAAD is the largest German support organisation in the field of international academic co-operation....
, Berlin - 1992 - LA Louver, Los Angeles
- 1994 - Marlborough Fine ArtMarlborough Fine ArtMarlborough Fine Art was founded in London, England, in 1946 by Frank Lloyd and Harry Fischer.In 1963, a gallery was opened in Manhattan, New York, USA,on Madison Avenue and 57th Street, which later relocated in 1971 to its present location, 40 West 57th Street. The gallery operates another New...
, London - 1995 - Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern ArtAstrup Fearnley Museum of Modern ArtThe Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art is a privately owned Contemporary Art gallery in Oslo in Norway. It was founded and opened to the public in 1993...
, Oslo - 2000 - Fig-1, "50 Projects in 50 weeks", London
- 2005 - "Contemporary Voices", Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, New York. - 2008 - "Christopher Le Brun", The New Art GalleryWalsall Art GalleryThe New Art Gallery Walsall is a modern and contemporary art gallery sited in the centre of the West Midlands town of Walsall, England. It was built with £21 million of public funding, including £15.75 million from the UK National Lottery and additional money from the European Regional Development...
, Walsall - 2010 - "The Distance", The New Art Centre Roche Court, Wiltshire
- 2011 - "Five Symbolic Images. Bronze and Plaster Sculptures", One Canada SquareOne Canada SquareOne Canada Square is a skyscraper in Canary Wharf in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is the tallest completed building in the United Kingdom since 1991, standing at above ground level and containing 50 storeys...
Canary Wharf, London
Posts
- 1990-95 - Trustee of the Tate GalleryTate GalleryThe Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
- 1996-2003 - Trustee of the National GalleryNational Gallery, LondonThe National Gallery is an art museum on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media...
- 2000-2002 - Professor of Drawing at the Royal AcademyRoyal AcademyThe Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
- 2000-2005 - Trustee of the Dulwich Picture GalleryDulwich Picture GalleryDulwich Picture Gallery is an art gallery in Dulwich, South London. England's first purpose-built public art gallery, it was designed by Regency architect Sir John Soane and opened to the public in 1817. Soane arranged the exhibition spaces as a series of interlinked rooms illuminated naturally...
- 2003 to present - Trustee of The Prince's Drawing School London
Printmaking
Le Brun is an experienced printmaker working in etching, lithography, woodcut and monotype. He has had long term collaborations with Peter Kosowicz and Simon Marsh of the former Hope Sufferance Press as well as Paragon Press and Paupers Press in London, Garner and Richard TullisGarner Tullis
Garner Handy Tullis is an American born artist residing in Pietrarubbia, Italy, since the September 11 attacks in 2001.- Biography :...
in Santa Barbara, Michael Woolworth Publications in Paris and Graphic Studio in Dublin.
In 2005 a new and extensive series of prints, the 50 Etchings was published by Paragon Press. Launched initially at Frieze
Frieze Art Fair
Frieze Art Fair is an international contemporary art fair that takes place every October in London's Regent's Park. The fair is staged by Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover, the publishers of frieze magazine...
, it has been exhibited in Cologne, New York and the Original Print Fair in London. Sets have recently been acquired by the Fitzwilliam Museum
Fitzwilliam Museum
The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge, located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge, England. It receives around 300,000 visitors annually. Admission is free....
, Cambridge and the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
, London.
His continuing interest in monotype dates from 1986 when during the first of several visits to the Tullis studio in California, he made amongst other works, a 60 part print measuring over 15'x40' in two days. A more recent monotype project inaugurated the Artists International Print Project at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice in 2002, working with the printers Simon Marsh and Michael Taylor of Paupers Press.
Notable publications include Seven Lithographs 1989, 50 Etchings 1990, Four Riders 1993, Wagner 1994, Motif Light 1998, Paris Lithographs 2000, Fifty Etchings 2005.
Works
- Collections with holdings of his works include the Tate GalleryTate GalleryThe Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
, the British MuseumBritish MuseumThe British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern ArtScottish National Gallery of Modern ArtThe Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, holds the national collection of modern art. When opened in 1960, the collection was held in Inverleith House, at the Royal Botanic Gardens...
and MoMAMuseum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, New York. For a full list see Public Collections below. - A cast of his large bronze sculpture Union–Horse with Two Discs - was acquired by and installed at the entrance to the Museum of LondonMuseum of LondonThe Museum of London documents the history of London from the Prehistoric to the present day. The museum is located close to the Barbican Centre, as part of the striking Barbican complex of buildings created in the 1960s and 70s as an innovative approach to re-development within a bomb damaged...
in 2005. This was Le Brun's first large scale bronze.
Public Collections
Aberdeen Art Gallery /Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney /
Arts Council of Great Britain /
Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo /
Berardo Museum, Lisbon /
Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery /
The British Council, London /
British Museum, London /
Chester Beatty Library, Dublin /
Contemporary Art Society, London /
Courtauld Gallery, London /
Department of the Environment, London /
Falmouth Art Gallery /
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge /
Hamilton Art Gallery, Ontario /
Harris Museum, Preston /
Harvard University Art Museums /
High Museum, Atlanta /
Ile de France Regional Fund /
Isle of Man Arts Council /
John Creasey Museum, Salisbury /
Liverpool Cathedral /
Malmo Doershus, Malmo /
Maclaurin Art Gallery, Ayr /
McNay Museum, San Antonio, Texas /
Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo /
Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego /
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney /
Museum of Modern Art, New York /
Museum of London /
National Portrait Gallery, London /
New Art Gallery, Walsall /
Power Gallery, University of Sydney /
Rooseum, Malmo /
Royal Academy, London /
Royal Mint, Cardiff /
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh /
Southampton Museum and Art Gallery /
Southwark Art Collection /
Spencer Collection, New York City Public Library /
Stavanger Art Gallery, Stavanger /
Stirlingshire Educational Trust /
Swindon Museum and Art Gallery /
Tate Gallery, London /
University of Liverpool /
University of Tasmania, Hobart /
University of Texas, Austin /
Victoria and Albert Museum, London /
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool /
Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles /
Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester /
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven