October 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Rico Lebrun: Dante’s Inferno
Exhibition Dates: November 3 – December 21, 2007
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 3, 2007, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Friday: 10:00 am – 5:30 pm; Saturday: 11:00 am – 5:30 pm
Public Contact: 310-836-9055
Koplin Del Rio is pleased to present an exhibition featuring a selection of drawings by Rico Lebrun inspired by the Inferno of Dante Alighieri. In 1961 Rico Lebrun completed a major body of work based on the Inferno, including hundreds of drawings and lithographs included in a limited edition fine art book published by Gehenna Press.
Rico Lebrun’s approach to the text of Dante’s Inferno is not one of literal illustration, but a broader depiction of human suffering, including the internal personal hell of daily mortal struggles. As the artist put it, “Since his images are agonic and compounded in metamorphosis, shaped by the climate of hell, to try to illustrate Dante without contributing a share of personal ‘hell’ seems impossible.”
The drawings, feverishly rendered in ink wash on paper are explorations of the more primal facets of human nature. The forms are fluid and often grotesque. The artist responds directly to the linear mobility of Dante’s descriptive passages, translating the raw emotion of the characters and capturing visceral elements of the verse in a torrent of truncated, riven and twisted human forms.
In a letter to his son, David Lebrun, the artist described his work on the series:
“Some are bloody and horrifying as the cantos in the Inferno are; there is no other way to depict terror as Dante describes it, without turning the whole thing into an assembly of sedately arranged figures having a picnic in a dark place.”
Born in Naples, Italy, Rico Lebrun immigrated to the United States in early 1924. Lebrun was the recipient of numerous awards including three Guggenheim fellowships. A gifted instructor, Lebrun taught at several institutions including the Art Students League of New York, Jepson Art Institute in Los Angeles and Yale University. The Los Angeles County Museum of art organized a major retrospective of over 200 works by the artist in 1967.
