Christopher Le Brun British, b. 1951

Christopher Le Brun is a celebrated British painter, sculptor and printmaker. Born in 1951 in Portsmouth, Le Brun studied in London at the Slade and Chelsea Schools of Art. In his early career he was a double prize winner at the John Moores exhibitions in 1978 and 1980, exhibited in the 1980 Venice Biennale and in the ground-breaking show 'Zeitgeist' held at the Martin-Gropius Bau, Berlin in 1982. His artwork can be found in museum collections across the world including the Tate, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the British Museum, London; the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, New York; the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, USA; and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

 

For almost thirty years, Le Brun has been a key public figure in the British art world and has served as a trustee of several major art establishments. These institutions include the Tate, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Dulwich Picture Gallery and the Royal Drawing School. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 1996 and in 2000 he became their first Professor of Drawing. In 2011 Le Brun was elected President of the Royal Academy where he oversaw the most significant redevelopment project in the Academy's 250 year history. It is widely acknowledged that during Le Brun's tenure, 2011 to 2019, he revitalised the institution's reputation through its world class shows, Academician membership and post-graduate school.

 

The artist's work is characterised by a devotion to the essential principles of touch, colour, space and light whilst maintaining a strongly individual stance in relation to contemporary art history. It is rooted in the long tradition of the English appreciation of landscape and nature whether this is expressed in terms of painting, literature, music or poetry. These notions provide a common ground which Le Brun frequently references throughout his practise.