Rico (Federico) Lebrun (

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

, December 10, 1900 – Malibu, May 9, 1964) was an

Italian-American Italian Americans ( it, italoamericani or ''italo-americani'', ) are Americans who have full or partial Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeast and industrial Midwestern metropolitan areas, w ...

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

and

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

Early life

Lebrun was born in 1900 in

Naples, Italy Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

. He initially studied banking and journalism before taking art classes at the Naples Academy of Fine Arts from 1919 to 1921. Following this he went to Florence, where he studied as a muralist. He received practical training at a stained-glass factory.

Artistic career

After emigrating to the United States in 1924, he worked as a commercial artist in Pittsburgh and New York for several years. In the early 1930s he returned to Italy where he studied the frescoes of

Luca Signorelli Luca Signorelli ( – 16 October 1523) was an Italian Renaissance painter from Cortona in Tuscany, who was noted in particular for his ability as a draftsman and his use of foreshortening. His massive frescos of the ''Last Judgment'' (1499–15 ...

. He moved to California in 1936. He exhibited in New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Toronto. In the mid-1950s, his work focused on the experience of the concentration camps at

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...

and Dachau. He is best known for his series of paintings on "The Crucifixion."

Teaching

In 1940, Lebrun taught at the

Chouinard Art Institute The Chouinard Art Institute was a professional art school founded in 1921 by Nelbert Murphy Chouinard (1879–1969) in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. In 1961, Walt and Roy Disney guided the merger of the Chouinard Art In ...

in Los Angeles, then at the

Jepson Art Institute Jepson Art Institute, founded in 1945 by artist Herbert Jepson, was an art school located at 2861 West 7th Street in the Westlake district of central Los Angeles, California. It flourished from 1947 to 1953 — becoming an important center for ...

, also in L.A., from 1947–50, directing it from 1951-54 when it closed. In 1938 for one year and half, he presided art drawing classes at

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

during the production of

Bambi ''Bambi'' is a 1942 American animated drama film directed by David Hand (supervising a team of sequence directors), produced by Walt Disney and based on the 1923 book ''Bambi, a Life in the Woods'' by Austrian author and hunter Felix Salten. ...

. In 1958 Lebrun was a visiting lecturer of art at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

. He also taught at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

Tulane University Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private university, private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into ...

.and the Art Students' League of New York.

Personal life

LeBrun was survived by his filmmaker son David (b. 1944), his widow, Constance, his mother, Assunta Lebrun, brother, Eugenio and sister, Maria.

Awards

*John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (1936–37) *John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (1937–38) *First Prize, "Abstract & Surrealist American Art", The

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

(1947) *

Norman Wait Harris Norman Wait Harris (August 15, 1846 – July 15, 1916) was an American banker. He founded Chicago-based N.W. Harris & Co., the predecessor of Harris Bank as well as its affiliate Harris, Forbes & Co. and later Harris, Hall & Co. Biography H ...

Silver Medal, The Art Institute of Chicago (1947) *First Prize, "Artists of Los Angeles & Vicinity", Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1948) *Purchase Prize, "Illinois National Exhibition of Contemporary Painting", University of Illinois (1949) *Second Prize, "American Painting Today", The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1950) *Award of Merit of the American Academy of Arts & Letters for "Outstanding achievement in the past five years in paintings" (1952) *

Temple Gold Medal Joseph E. Temple Fund Gold Medal (defunct) was a prestigious art prize awarded by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts most years from 1883 to 1968. A Temple Medal recognized the best oil painting by an American artist shown in PAFA's annual e ...

, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1953) *Lippincott Prize, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1962) *Elected into the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...

(1962) *Purchase Award, "Third Biennial National Print Exhibit", Pasadena Art Museum (1962) *Joseph Pennell Award, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1963) *John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (1962–63)

Collections

Lebrun's papers are held in the

Smithsonian Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washingt ...

. His work is included in numerous collections, including: * the

Museum of Modern Art, New York The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, ...

, * the

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...

, * the

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

* the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

, *

The Jewish Museum The Jewish Museum is an art museum and repository of cultural artifacts, housed at 1109 Fifth Avenue, in the former Felix M. Warburg House, along Museum Mile on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. The first Jewish museum in the Unit ...

, New York, * the

North Carolina Museum of Art The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) is an art museum in Raleigh, North Carolina. It opened in 1956 as the first major museum collection in the country to be formed by state legislation and funding. Since the initial 1947 appropriation that e ...

, * the

Benton Museum of Art The Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College, known colloquially as the Benton, is an art museum at Pomona College in Claremont, California. It was completed in 2020, replacing the Montgomery Art Gallery which had been home to the Pomona College ...

, * the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, * the Vincent Price museum of Art, * the

Harvard Art Museum The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

, * the Museo ItaloAmericano, and * the Claremont Museum of Art. *the Collection of Modern Religious Art, Vatican Museums

References

External links

Rico Lebrun

Tobey C. Moss Gallery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lebrun, Rico Italian artists 1900 births 1964 deaths Deaths from cancer in California Treasury Relief Art Project artists Instituto Allende faculty Italian emigrants to the United States Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters