Christopher Le Brun
Christopher Le Brun is a painter, printmaker and sculptor. Born in Portsmouth in 1951 he trained at the Slade and Chelsea Schools of Art, London. In his early career, he was a double prize winner at the John Moores exhibitions, 1978 & 1980, also showing in the Venice Biennale, 1982, and the ground-breaking Zeitgeist at the Martin-Gropius Bau, Berlin 1982. His work can be found in museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, New York; Tate, the V&A and the British Museum, London; the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia and the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, USA.
For almost thirty years, Le Brun has continuously served as a trustee of major British art institutions: Tate, National Gallery, Dulwich Picture Gallery, the Royal Drawing School and the National Portrait Gallery. Elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 1996, he became the first ever Professor of Drawing. He was subsequently elected President from 2011-2019. During this period, he oversaw the most significant master plan redevelopment in the Academy’s 250 year history and is widely acknowledged as having revitalised the Academy’s reputation through its world class exhibitions, post-graduate school, and Academician membership.
His work is characterised by an adherence to the essential values of touch, light, space and colour while maintaining a questioning and strongly individual stance in relation to contemporary art history. Early on he was described variously as a post-modernist or Neo-expressionist. His art is rooted in the long tradition of the English appreciation of landscape and nature - whether expressed in painting, poetry or music - which provide a common ground frequently referred to throughout his work.
