Lot 179
Rico Lebrun (Naples, Italy 1900-1964 Malibu, CA). Ink drawing, 1945. Signed and dated "Lebrun 1945" with inscription "for Alice M." at lower right. A captivating figural ink drawing by 20th century Italian-American artist Rico Lebrun rendered in his expressive, gestural style against an isometric (triangular) grid. The composition depicts a seated Touareg Berber man holding a sword before him and wearing a tagelmust (also known as a cheich and cheche), the traditional litham garment worn by Tuareg men in which the head is wrapped with many layers of fabric to create both a turban and a veil. All is delineated with Lebrun's keen eye for dramatic composition and striking contrasts between light and dark inspired by Spanish and Italian Baroque influences. Size (sight view): 18.7" L x 23.125" W (47.5 cm x 58.7 cm) Size (frame): 19.7" L x 24.125" W (50 cm x 61.3 cm)
About the artist: "Rico Lebrun, painter, muralist, sculptor, printmaker, and commercial artist, was born in Naples, Italy on December 10, 1900. He studied at the Accademia di Bella Arti di Napoli in Naples between 1918 and 1922 and worked as a designer at a stained-glass factory in Italy. It was also during this time that he studied with the fresco painters Albino and Cambi in Naples. Lebrun emigrated to the United States in 1924 and eventually settled in New York where he quickly became a successful commercial artist designing for Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, and The New Yorker magazines.
Lebrun returned to Italy in 1927 and 1928, and his 1930 visit extended through 1932 allowing that he could study fresco painting with Galimberti in Rome. During this time he traveled to Orvieto where he studied the murals of Signorelli. Lebrun returned to New York in January of 1933 and he worked with Louis Rubinstein on designs and the execution of a mural at the Fogg Museum. His cartoons for the Story of the Mines mural won him the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 1936-37 and the award was extended for a second year. During this time he taught mural composition and fresco painting at the Art Students League of New York and began working in the mural division of the WPA.
Gridley Barrows and Channing Peake, both California artists, assisted Lebrun on the WPA project and were instrumental in persuading him to move west. Initially moving to Santa Barbara, California in 1938, Lebrun accepted a teaching position at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. In 1940 he taught animation at Walt Disney Studios, and, the following year, Donald Bear, director of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art organized Lebrun's first exhibition at the Faulkner Memorial Art Gallery in Santa Barbara. Lebrun was represented in the Museum of Modern Arts important exhibition of American painters, 'Americans 1942,' and, soon after, his first solo show in New York opened at the Julien Levy Gallery.
Continuing to live and work in Southern California, Lebrun was appointed artist-in-residence at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. In 1947, he was hired as an instructor at the newly formed Jepson Art Institute in Los Angeles, and, in 1951, he was appointed director. In 1952, he began an eighteen month stay in Mexico where he taught at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende. Later in the decade, he was Visiting Professor at Yale University and artist-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome.
Rico Lebrun was elected a full academician in the National Academy of Design in 1963 and his other honors included the Temple Gold Medal from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Award of Merit of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work is represented in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art; the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University; the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Santa Barbara Museum of Art; the Smithsonian Museum of American Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Worcester Art Museum; and Yale University Art Gallery.
Rico Lebrun died on May 9, 1964, in Malibu, California." (source: Annex Galleries website)
Provenance: private Constance McCormick Fearing estate, Montecito, California, USA, acquired before 2004
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#181010
- Condition: Signed and dated "Lebrun 1945" with inscription "for Alice M." at lower right. Embossed Strathmore seal at upper right of paper. Drawing is mounted behind glass in a wooden frame and has not been examined outside the frame. Paper appears to present with normal toning, minor crease marks, and slight waviness. There is a small stain at the lower left (below the figure's thighs) that does not impact the central image. Overall, drawing is still strong and vivid. Frame has expected age wear; tears to gallery paper on verso; fit with an old suspension wire which we would recommend replacing.
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