“Rico Lebrun: Consulting the Tangible World”  :  October 20, 2004

The Stephen F. Austin State University College of Fine Arts, University Series and Department of Art will open “Rico Lebrun: Consulting the Tangible World” at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 20, in Griffith Gallery, Room 208 of the Griffith Fine Arts Building. Dr. Bradley Bailey, SFA assistant professor of art history, will speak on Lebrun’s life and work, and a reception hosted by Nacogdoches Junior Forum will follow.

This portrait of Peggy Bacon by Rico Lebrun will be included in “Rico Lebrun: Consulting the Tangible World” that opens at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 20, in Griffith Gallery on the Stephen F. Austin State University campus. The exhibition of drawings and paintings is presented by the SFA College of Fine Arts, University Series and the Department of Art.
The exhibition, which continues through Dec. 12, includes drawings and prints from the collection of Jim and Norma Cotton and Michael T. Ricker.

Lebrun was born in Naples, Italy, in 1900 and moved to the United States in 1924, producing murals in New York City and teaching at the Art Students League. In 1938, he moved to California and taught at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. Lebrun also worked for Disney Studios in the animation department, training the artists who created the animation for “Bambi.”

According to Shannon Bailey, SFA gallery director, Lebrun’s work tends to be asbstract and gestural yet heavily influenced by classical figural form.“We can see the influence of Michelangelo, Goya and Picasso in his art,” she continued.The wide variety of subject matter in his drawings and prints includes religious scenes, clowns, cripples, Holocaust survivors and images of Dante’s “Inferno.”  During his lifetime, Lebrun exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Lebrun’s work is currently included in collections at the National Gallery of Art and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Pomona College Museum of Art and the San Diego Museum of Art.

The exhibition is sponsored in part by Nacogdoches Junior Forum, SFA Friends of the Arts and SFA Student Government Association. Regular gallery hours are 12:30 to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday. The exhibition and opening are free and open to the public. For more information, please call (936) 468-1131.

Aaron Smith: Day for Night, Recent Paintings and Drawings

Taking beauty to the limit--
We will, hopefully, never tire of masterful representational painting with classical roots.  Much as we decry the end of draftsmanship and the ascendance of the idea, there is something about paint made to look like the turn of a supple lip or the thigh of a nude lad. Aaron Smith delivers just such painting, and just in case you miss the point he will delineate a lush body with a transparent sheet of fabric in front of it so that even something as unseen as light through cloth is rendered tangible via paint and the play of shadow on and in it.  Other portraits are delivered in true old school Van Eyck style, apparently reflected in some round object like a mirror or a Christmas tree globe.  There are moments when the work is forced, the anatomy a little awkward, but if this is the trajectory for a relatively young artist, great things lie ahead (at Koplin Del Rio, West Hollywood).

Art Scene Vol. 24, No. 2: Continued and Recommended, Oct. 2004

Drawings VII: A Group Show of over 40 Artists

LA Times: Calendar
Friday August 28, 2004
The human form in staid settings
Author: David Pagel

A year-and-a-half ago, Marti Koplin retired, her partner Eleana Del Rio took over, and Koplin Gallery became Koplin Del Rio Gallery. "Drawings VII," this summer's installment of the biannual exhibition that began more than a decade ago, presents a focused selection of generally strong depictions of the human figure.

Landscapes, still lifes, abstractions, Surrealist-inspired phantasms and indescribable hybrids are in short supply in this group show, which zeroes in on bodies, many nude and most rendered with such attentiveness that they're a pleasure to see, particularly because they're far from idealized.

Among the 80 drawings by 47 artists, standouts include vividly realistic portraits by Steven Assael, Ira Korman, A.J. Smith, Robert Schultz, Bruno Surdo, James Valerio and Bill Vuksanovich. All of these meticulously realized images emphasize the physicality of living flesh by depicting it against the flat backdrop of white, gray or black.

Other artists provide settings for their figures. In general, as narrative specifics increase, realistic details decrease. This is true in engaging works by Stephen Cefalo, Warren Criswell, D.J. Hall, Zhi Lin and Kerry James Marshall. All balance precise observation against narrative suggestion, loading believable scenes with potent emotions.

A handful of artists forgo the human figure. The ones that sustain attention do so because they endow landscapes, animals and objects with the significance we usually reserve for encounters with people.

Katherine Doyle's charcoal and pastel drawing of light streaming through trees is magical. Hilary Brace's pair of postcard-size charcoals on Mylar are mysterious. Peter Zokosky's four monkey pictures are endearing without anthropomorphizing our genetic relatives. And Rebecca Morales' intimate still life brings a rare touch of color to an otherwise black, white and gray exhibition.

Less buttoned-down seriousness and more unpredictability would add to a tradition that's beginning to look a little too staid.