Riot Material

Art. Word. Thought.

  • Home
  • Riot Material Magazine
    • About RM / Subscribe
    • Entering The Mind
      • 3-Part Podcast
    • Contributors
    • Categories >
      • Art
      • Artist
      • Books
      • Thought
      • Film
      • Cinema Disordinaire
      • Riot Sounds
      • Records
      • Jazz
      • Interview
      • More   >
        • Architecture
        • Image
        • The Line
        • The New Word
        • That Evening Sun
        • The Natural World
        • Video
    • Contact
    • Masthead
  • Art
    • Art Reviews
  • Books
    • Book Reviews
  • Film
    • Film Reviews
  • Records
    • Jazz Reviews
    • All Reviews
  • Riot Sounds
  • Cinema Disordinaire
    • Riot Cinema

Rico Lebrun In Mexico

February 12, 2018 By Lorraine Heitzman Leave a Comment

at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, Los Angeles (through March 17, 2018)
Reviewed by Lorraine Heitzman

Discovering Rico Lebrun in Mexico at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts is a thrilling experience in the way that the best introductions are: eye-opening and ultimately rewarding. At the same time it is a little confounding too because the work is unfamiliar and it shouldn’t be. These are large paintings of tremendous, muscular force that are as passionate as they are perfectly constructed. That the work was made over sixty years ago and largely overlooked is bewildering. To paraphrase Jack Rutberg, “Only in L.A.”

Figure Sitting on a Beggar, 1961.

Rico Lebrun was born in Italy in 1900 and came to this country when he was twenty-four after accepting a job designing stained glass in a factory in Illinois. In a very short time he was in New York City where he had a successful career as an illustrator. Lebrun returned to Italy to study frescoes and when he resettled in the United States later he dedicated himself completely to his fine art. He had an auspicious start; almost immediately Lebrun received a commission for a fresco and was subsequently awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship based on the drawings for a proposed mural. The following year they gave him another one, the second of three Guggenheim Fellowships he earned in his lifetime. When he relocated to the West Coast in 1938, he first moved to Santa Barbara but eventually settled in Los Angeles where he taught at the Chouinard Art Institute and the Disney Studios. Lebrun achieved many accomplishments during his life: gallery representation and teaching positions on both coasts, mural commissions, solo exhibitions, museum shows and fellowships. Three years after his death in 1964, the Los Angeles Museum of Art gave him a retrospective but there have been scant opportunities to see his work since then. Rico Lebrun In Mexico seeks to rectify that.

As a participating show in Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, all of Lebrun’s work in this exhibit was made during and in response to his time spent in San Miguel de Allende. In 1952 he was teaching at the Instituto Allende but he continued to work on most of these images well after his return to the States. In his Mexican journals, (themselves very poetic) Lebrun marvels about the local markets and customs perhaps because they echoed elements of his youth in Naples.  Inevitably it seems as though the stimulation of the Mexican culture influenced his artistic vision too because his work began evolving. His earlier work was often steeped in classical drawing and religious themes, the best known being the Crucifixion, (1947-1950) still on view at Syracuse University, New York. But the early fifties heralded a time of immense change in painting with the abstract expressionists dominating the conversation and Lebrun was not immune to the lure of abstraction. The work in this show represents a departure from most of his figurative work as he experimented with abstract forms to a greater extent than either before or after his time in Mexico.

Mexican Meat Stall, 1954.
Mexican Street in the Rain, 1954.

What is most striking about the paintings that were inspired by San Miguel de Allende is the vitality of the work. The locale and the influence of Picasso and Goya (whom Lebrun was known to admire) are strongly felt, particularly in Mexican Meat Stall, completed in 1954. This painting has something of the feel of Guernica to it, not only because of the reference to bulls, but also through the expression of anguish. Lebrun uses angular shapes and bold colors to conjure death while an improvised grid depicts the meat stall and focuses attention on the brutality inherent in the butcher’s trade. However, apart from the representational aspects, there is an energetic quality that transcends the slaughterhouse. Loose brushwork, paint drips and decorative elements all contribute to a liveliness that betrays the harsh reality of the subject matter. Lebrun’s use of collage to make quick, expedient changes bring exuberance to the work that aligns with the abstract expressionists. Standing at eight feet tall, even the size of Mexican Meat Stall contributes to the impact of this impressive work, allowing for an immersive experience.

In Mexican Street In the Rain (1954) Lebrun again uses paint and collage in an oversized format to great effect. Here he conveys the experience of a sudden deluge with jagged shapes descending from stylized storm clouds. Lebrun uses vertical bands to accentuate the tumultuous downpour while irregular shapes convey chaos brought about by the wind. In the text from his journal that accompanies Mexican Street In the Rain, Lebrun writes in his journal:

Magdalene and Centurian, 1955.

“Bells had been clamoring for rain: then it came, violent, and with such malevolence that it changed fields into rivers and washed all the corn into the gullies. Shutters, tents, market stalls and chairs, batlike skirts and flying tresses of scuttling women flapped and slid through the tall arches of solid water spouting from terraces on both sides of the streets. The walls were huge maps of mottled pomegranate, chocolate, ice blue, and almond green, and the sidewalks of Queretaro stone looked like slabs of freshly cut bacon.” *

It is this fervor and sense of discovery that Lebrun captures so effortlessly. His response to his environment is palpable and the painting captures his enthusiasm. In Magdaline and Centurion (1955) he shifts more toward the figurative but the characters are still very abstracted. Constructed in the same modular method as the other work, Lebrun relies on the juxtaposition of multiple elements including patterns and collaged shapes. By the time he made this painting he was already back in Southern California and working on a series about the atrocities of the holocaust so perhaps the figure and humanist themes were beginning to infiltrate and affect Magdaline and Centurion as well.

Mexican Gate, 1953.

Mexican Gate is a somber, melancholy painting that seems more related to Lebrun’s drawings than the rest of the colorful works in this show. Hardly monochromatic, it is nevertheless more muted compared to Mexican Street In The Rain or Mexican Meat Stall. The lack of contrast makes the shapes more prominent and as they shift from foreground to background they become intertwined like so many limbs. The iron forms look almost skeletal, more organic than what one expects from a man-made thing. During this period Lebrun wrote about how he increasingly saw the relationships between the landscape and the figure and that perception is beginning to take hold in “Gate”. It also has a depth that is not as present in the other paintings as if to call attention to the space that the barrier seeks to constrain.

Artesano con su Muñeca Grande, 1955.

Lebrun’s drawings in the show fall into two categories: those that directly correlate to his paintings and those that served more as visual notes or observations of his Mexican experience. The black and white ink drawings displayed beside his paintings seem to be preliminary compositions and it is a pleasure to see the simple sketches, but it should be emphasized that the paintings in this show are very loose themselves and much of their interest is in the way Lebrun allows us to see his creative process unfold.

Throughout Rico Lebrun’s life he worked in series, often returning to certain imagery and humanist themes. Recurring subjects included his Crucifixion cycles and Mary Magdalene drawings, and upon his return from Mexico, his series devoted to the atrocities at Buchenwald. Foremost was his interest in figure. The two years that Rico Lebrun spent in Mexico produced work that in many ways was atypical for the artist. He didn’t abandon the figure entirely, but seemed to absorb the lessons of the country that would transform the way he thought about art. In 1959-1960, five years after his return from San Miguel de Allende, Lebrun wrote:

“I have recently painted a new version of it (the Crucifixion), and this is a bird of a different color-and a bird of many colors, because suddenly as a legitimate reaction to the period of the Crucifixion, after having been in Mexico and seen what Mexico is like and remembering what I am supposed to be as a painter, I have come to the idea of adopting splendor rather than gloom. I don’t say that I am going to pick up gay anecdotes out of existence, but my job now is to do the tragic in a splendid way.” **

This sentiment beautifully addresses the transformative experience that traveling can instigate. Visually and culturally it must have been liberating for Lebrun because his two years living in Mexico became a time of great experimentation. The paintings that he created there and the ones he completed upon his return to Los Angeles are vibrantly colored, lively, and abstract; loose but fully resolved. And although his work did not continue in the same vein, he applied the essence of his newfound splendor to his work for the remainder of his life.

Muñeca, 1955.

♦

*In the Meridian of the Heart: Selected Letters of Rico Lebrun David Godine Press, 2000. Page 3
** Rico Lebrun quote found in Syracuse University exhibition catalogue: Transformations/Transfiguration Ellen C. Oppler 1983. Page 31.

~

Lorraine Heitzman is an artist and writer living in Los Angeles. She has written about the local arts community for ArtCricketLA and Armseye Magazine and is currently a regular contributor to Art and Cake. In addition to exhibiting her art, Ms. Heitzman has her own blog, countingknuckles.com, and her art can be seen on her website lorraineheitzman.com

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

The Line

An interview with Alison Saar, at Riot Material magazine.

An Interview with Alison Saar

By Ricky Amadour As an indefatigable voice for women of color and the greater human spirit, Alison Saar recomposes fractured histories into multivalent sculptures. Saar curated SeenUNseen, a group exhibition at L.A. Louver Gallery, with a focus on spirit portraiture. Throughout human existence there has been a predilection to the allure of the unseen. Hidden […]

William S. Burroughs on a bed, smoking a cigarette.

“The Opposite of Literature:” Mary McCarthy’s Feb. ’63 Review of Naked Lunch

From the inaugural print edition of The New York Review of Books In remembrance of Jason Epstein, originator and co-founder of NYRB RIP 1928-2022 by Mary McCarthy Naked Lunch  by William S. Burroughs Grove Press, 304pp., $14.49 “You can cut into The Naked Lunch at any intersection point,” says Burroughs, suiting the action to the […]

Remembered and Remade: James Castle’s Conjurings of Mind

James Castle at David Zwirner, NYC (through 12 February 2022) by Andrew Martin James Castle: Memory Palace John Beardsley Yale University Press, 280pp., $65.00 NYR Every James Castle picture seems to contain a secret. Approaching one of his works for the first time, you peer into pockets of shadow and smudge, examining the depopulated landscapes […]

Vulgar Genres: Gay Pornographic Writing and Contemporary Fiction

Vulgar Genres: Gay Pornographic Writing and Contemporary Fiction

An excerpt from a new book which examines gay pornographic writing, showing how literary fiction was both informed by pornography and amounts to a commentary on the genre’s relation to queer male erotic life. —The University of Chicago Press Vulgar Genres: Gay Pornographic Writing and Contemporary Fiction by Steven Ruszczycky University of Chicago Press, 216pp., $30.00 In the United […]

Hilary Brace, Drawings and Tapestries, is reviewed at Riot Material magazine.

Darkness Made Visible in Hilary Brace’s Drawings and Tapestries

at Craig Krull Gallery, Bergamot Station (through 19 February 2022) Reviewed by Eve Wood The intricacies and inherent beauty of the natural world are rarely celebrated these days, and when artists do turn their attention to the surrounding landscape, the resulting images are usually ones of devastation and chaos — charting the movement of fires, […]

The Tragedy of Macbeth 

A film written and directed by Joel Coen Reviewed by James Shapiro NYR Those who have long followed the Coen brothers and their cinematic universe of criminals, nihilists, and overreachers may see in Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) a long-deferred reckoning with Shakespeare, who has been there before them. We don’t typically think of Shakespeare […]

John Divola, From Dogs Chasing My Car In The Desert,1996-98,

Illuminating Images: Liquid Light and Golden Hour and the Affective Force of Non-Didactic Art

at the Vincent Price Art Museum, Los Angeles (through 5 February 2022) Reviewed by Johanna Drucker What is the difference between a wall label and a work of art? The unrelenting didacticism that prevails in current gallery and museum exhibits of contemporary art makes it seem that many curators and artists cannot answer that question. […]

The Occult Works of Ray Robinson, with an essay by Christopher Ian Lutz, is at Riot Material Magazine.

The Brush as Luminous Torch: Ray Robinson’s Blazing Portals Into the Divine Feminine

The Third Door:Occult Works of Ray Robinson, at the Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magic (through 15 January) by Christopher Ian Lutz Burn the Sun The persecution of the witch is a war of the hours. The Inquisition that charged women with witchcraft was not just about controlling women’s bodies – it was a crusade to extinguish […]

An Interview with Artist Gala Porras-Kim is at Riot Material Magazine.

An Interview with Artist Gala Porras-Kim

by Ricky Amadour . Interdisciplinary artist Gala Porras-Kim frames her research to highlight and question the current institutional practices of conservation, acquisition, and deaccession. Acting as an investigator of cultural artifacts that correspond to institutional collections, Porras-Kim deep dives into the expansive histories, stories, and functions of those objects. The artist’s first solo exhibition in […]

Seizing the Snowmelt: Industrial Agriculture is Draining Our State Dry

by Mark Arax The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California by Mark Arax Knopf, 576pp., $25.00 MITTR The wind finally blew the other way last night and kicked out the smoke from the burning Sierra. Down here in the flatland of California, we used to regard the granite mountain as a place apart, our […]

The Great Flood of 1862

The Looming Catastrophe Few in California Are Aware Of (or in Want to Address)

An excerpt from Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent it, by Tom Philpott. THE FLOOD NEXT TIME In November 1860, a young scientist from upstate New York named William Brewer disembarked in San Francisco after a long journey that took him from New York City through Panama and then […]

Precontact California Indians: Their Life Prior to Genocide

An excerpt from the first chapter of An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, by Benjamin Madley. CALIFORNIA INDIANS BEFORE 1846 Within a few days, eleven little babies of this mission, one after the other, took their flight to heaven. -Fray Junipero Serra, 1774 We were always trembling with fear of […]

Laurie Anderson's "The Weather," is reviewed at Riot Material magazine.

An Atmospheric River of Wonder in Laurie Anderson’s The Weather

at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. (through 31 July 2022)  Reviewed by Nancy Kay Turner             “What are the days for? To put between the endless nights. What are the nights for? To slip through time into another world.”  –Laurie Anderson             “Stories are our weather”  –Laurie Anderson Laurie Anderson is a Renaissance polymath whose […]

Maria Lassnig Augenglaeser - Autoportraets (1965)

Maria Lassnig: The Paris Years, 1960–68

at Petzel Gallery, New York City Reviewed by James Quandt Maria Lassnig: Film Works edited by Eszter Kondor, Michael Loebenstein, Peter Pakesch, and Hans Werner Poschauko FilmmuseumSynemaPublikationen, 189 pp., $35.00 NYRB Many female artists — most recently Carmen Herrera, Faith Ringgold, and Lorraine O’Grady — have had to wait a lifetime to be accorded the recognition […]

Marcellina Akpojotor’s Sublime Matriarchy

Daughters of Esan at Rele Gallery, Los Angeles (through 4 December 2021) Reviewed by Eve Wood Marcellina Akpojotor’s second solo exhibition, Daughters of Esan, continues her exploration into notions of personal intimacy, drawing on her own relationships with her family and the tremendously powerful and transformational possibilities of education and love. Inspired by her great-grandmother’s […]

An interview with Rachael Tarravechia, at Riot Material

Fear and Self-Loathing in Rachael Tarravechia’s Wish You Were Here

at Launch F18, NYC (through 4 December 2021) by Danielle Dewar The horror genre is rooted in a desire for catharsis by means of dispelling fears and anxieties that live deep within a subconscious mind. Since we often crave a controlled release of such emotions, the use of the macabre within an artist’s practice allows […]

Umar Rashid, aka Frohawk Two Feathers, exhibition review of En Garde/On God is at Riot Material magazine

Histories Disembowled in Umar Rashid’s En Garde/On God

at Blum and Poe, Los Angeles (through 18 December 2021) Reviewed by Ellen C. Caldwell In En Garde/On God, Blum & Poe showcases the work of artist Umar Rashid (also known by the pen name Frohawk Two Feathers). Featuring thirteen large paintings and one sculpture in Rashid’s hallmark style, the exhibition highlights works that are bold […]

A Grid Gone Wholly Off in My Monticello

Reviewed by Bridgett M. Davis My Monticello By Jocelyn Nicole Johnson Henry Holt & Company, 210 pp., $13.49 NYT In the essay “The Site of Memory,” Toni Morrison described the crafting of her fictional worlds as a quest to access the interior lives of her ancestors. “It’s a kind of literary archeology,” she explained. “On the […]

The Web of Mind Throughout Our Earth

Reviewed by Zoë Schlanger Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake Random House, 352 pp., $28.00; $15.48 NYRB Imagine that you are afloat on your back in the sea. You have some sense of its vast, unknowable depths—worlds of life are surely darting about beneath […]

Drugs Amongst Other Adult Liberties

Reviewed by Mike Jay Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear by Dr. Carl L. Hart Penguin Press, 290 pp., $16.94 NYRB The modern meaning of “drugs” is of surprisingly recent origin. Until the twentieth century, the word referred to all medications (as it still does in “drugstore”); it was only […]

Rashid Johnson, Anxious Red Painting August 20th. At Riot Material

Break//Breathe: Broken Men That Glitter

by Allyn Aglaïa Aumand On the coherence of fracture an essay in fragments on fragments * I had a lover once, who self described as a volcano, but fully encased. Make space to let it out sometimes, I told him. That’s why I wanted to see you today, he said.

Against White Feminism: Notes on Disruption

An excerpt from a new book W. W. Norton calls “a radically inclusive, intersectional, and transnational approach to the fight for women’s rights.”  Against White Feminism: Notes on Disruption by Rafia Zakaria W. W. Norton, 256pp., $23.95 There is an important distinction between what Nancy Fraser calls “affirmative change” and actual transformational change. The former is […]

RIOT MATERIAL
art. word. thought.