Rico Lebrun

Rico Lebrun is a familiar name in Los Angeles, where he lived and taught, painted and sculpted in the decades preceding his death in 1964, but his legacy is hard to pin down. David Lebrun, Rico's son, and James Renner, an artist living in San Diego, co-editors of a recently released book on the artist, both sense a disparity between the power of Lebrun's work and the amorphous quality of his influence. He's been misunderstood, David Lebrun contends. He's underrated, says Renner.

Pacific Standard Time will explore the origins of the Los Angeles art world through museum exhibitions throughout Southern California over the next six months. Times art reviewer Sharon Mizota has set the goal of seeing all of them. This is her latest report. In 1955, Italian émigré artist Rico Lebrun posed a question for the Abstract Expressionists, “O.K. what you have done was fine and necessary but where the hell do you go now?” Quoted in curator Michael Duncan's catalog essay, Lebrun's sentiment captures the essence of “L.A.

Regarding "Town and Campus" (Weekend Escape, Dec. 14), author Edward Wright mentions Jose Clemente Orozco's "Prometheus" mural at Pomona College, but there is no mention of Rico Lebrun, whose "Genesis" mural is shown in the photo accompanying the article. I hope the Travel section will identify Lebrun's work. He was a major presence in Los Angeles' art world: renowned artist, teacher and humanitarian. PATTI LAURSEN Los Angeles

Rico Lebrun was probably the most famous Modern American artist working in Los Angeles in the decade following World War II. Yet, when the J. Paul Getty Museum opened "Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture, 1950-1970" on Saturday, kicking off the mammoth, region-wide survey of Los Angeles art dubbed Pacific Standard Time, Lebrun's paintings were nowhere to be seen. Reputations rise and fall. Lebrun arrived in L.A. in 1938, worked at the old Chouinard Art Institute and got a job teaching Disney animators how to draw convincing animal motion for "Bambi.

The end of a millennial century approaches. The event seems to have roused Los Angeles to awareness of possessing a tangible past. Serious histories and critiques of the urban fabric appear regularly along with exhibitions reminding us that there was L.A. art before it got famous in the 1960s. The latest such event is Pomona College's "Rico Lebrun: The Drawings for Genesis." Housed in the Montgomery Gallery and organized by its director, Marjorie L.

Pacific Standard Time will explore the origins of the Los Angeles art world through museum exhibitions throughout Southern California over the next six months. Times art reviewer Sharon Mizota has set the goal of seeing all of them. This is her latest report. In 1955, Italian émigré artist Rico Lebrun posed a question for the Abstract Expressionists, “O.K. what you have done was fine and necessary but where the hell do you go now?” Quoted in curator Michael Duncan's catalog essay, Lebrun's sentiment captures the essence of “L.A.

In the art of Rico Lebrun (1900-1964), an Italian immigrant who played an influential role in the L.A. art world of the 1940s, the human figure stands as the sun around which all the planets revolve. The glorious core of existence, this sun can be brutal and harsh as naturally as it can be brilliant. The Koplin Gallery has assembled a show of Lebrun's drawings from the early 1960s that picture the body as fully rounded in form but driven only by carnal impulses.

Rico Lebrun was probably the most famous Modern American artist working in Los Angeles in the decade following World War II. Yet, when the J. Paul Getty Museum opened "Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture, 1950-1970" on Saturday, kicking off the mammoth, region-wide survey of Los Angeles art dubbed Pacific Standard Time, Lebrun's paintings were nowhere to be seen. Reputations rise and fall. Lebrun arrived in L.A. in 1938, worked at the old Chouinard Art Institute and got a job teaching Disney animators how to draw convincing animal motion for "Bambi.

With its wrought-iron chandelier, red-tiled floor and white textured walls, the reception hall of Village Green is such an ordinary example of Spanish-flavored decor that most Southern Californians wouldn't give it a second glance. But high above the broad bank of windows overlooking the central courtyard of the sprawling residential complex, mysterious images have emerged. A face peers out of a rectangular patch where plaster and several layers of paint have been removed.

ART Pasadena Museum curator Michael Duncan makes a case for who should be considered part of the postwar American figurative art movement, which, the curator contends, has been largely written out of the annals of art history. As part of Pacific Standard Time, "L.A. RAW: Abject Expressionism in Los Angeles 1945-1980" features works by 40 artists, from Rico Lebrun to Paul McCarthy, in a variety of media including photography, painting and performance. Pasadena Museum of California Art, 490 E. Union St. Opens Saturday.

With its wrought-iron chandelier, red-tiled floor and white textured walls, the reception hall of Village Green is such an ordinary example of Spanish-flavored decor that most Southern Californians wouldn't give it a second glance. But high above the broad bank of windows overlooking the central courtyard of the sprawling residential complex, mysterious images have emerged. A face peers out of a rectangular patch where plaster and several layers of paint have been removed.

Rico Lebrun is a familiar name in Los Angeles, where he lived and taught, painted and sculpted in the decades preceding his death in 1964, but his legacy is hard to pin down. David Lebrun, Rico's son, and James Renner, an artist living in San Diego, co-editors of a recently released book on the artist, both sense a disparity between the power of Lebrun's work and the amorphous quality of his influence. He's been misunderstood, David Lebrun contends. He's underrated, says Renner.

In the art of Rico Lebrun (1900-1964), an Italian immigrant who played an influential role in the L.A. art world of the 1940s, the human figure stands as the sun around which all the planets revolve. The glorious core of existence, this sun can be brutal and harsh as naturally as it can be brilliant. The Koplin Gallery has assembled a show of Lebrun's drawings from the early 1960s that picture the body as fully rounded in form but driven only by carnal impulses.

The end of a millennial century approaches. The event seems to have roused Los Angeles to awareness of possessing a tangible past. Serious histories and critiques of the urban fabric appear regularly along with exhibitions reminding us that there was L.A. art before it got famous in the 1960s. The latest such event is Pomona College's "Rico Lebrun: The Drawings for Genesis." Housed in the Montgomery Gallery and organized by its director, Marjorie L.

Regarding "Town and Campus" (Weekend Escape, Dec. 14), author Edward Wright mentions Jose Clemente Orozco's "Prometheus" mural at Pomona College, but there is no mention of Rico Lebrun, whose "Genesis" mural is shown in the photo accompanying the article. I hope the Travel section will identify Lebrun's work. He was a major presence in Los Angeles' art world: renowned artist, teacher and humanitarian. PATTI LAURSEN Los Angeles

All day / Art Three exhibitions will run concurrently through July 8 at the Laguna Art Museum. 'One Minute of Your Time,' a brief survey of Southern California art from 1835 to 2001, features 20 permanent-collection works that cover 17 historical periods from early California and Impressionism to popular culture. The art includes painting, sculpture, photography, drawings and installations by artists such as John Baldessari, Llyn Foulkes, Peter Krasnow, Rico Lebrun and Millard Sheets.

Like Rico Lebrun, with whom he shares aesthetic and biographical parallels, Hans Burkhardt is an idiosyncratic figure in Southern California art history. Both were European-born artists who moved to the West Coast from New York in the late 1930s. Both evolved a Baroque, hot-blooded style from Cubist and Surrealist models, and both came to represent provincial anachronisms outside the developing mainstream of Abstract Expressionism.