Syracuse University Art Galleries RIC 0 LEBRUN TRANSFORMATIONS/TRANSFIGURATION " ... changing what is disfigured into what is transfigured." Syracuse University Art Galleries Ellen C. Oppler 13 November 1983-18 January 1984 Joe and Emily Lowe Art Gallery, Syracuse University School of Art, College of Visual and Performing Arts c o N T E N T s Acknowledgements _____________________ Joseph A. Scala 4 Rico Lebrun The Paintings and Drawings: His Life ______________ Ellen C. Oppler 5 The Sculpture ________________________ Erin M. Stimmell 16 Exhibition Catalogue Syracuse UniversityWith Art Statements byGalleries Lebrun and Others 19 Chronology 40 Bibliography 43 Lebrun at work, 1950; William Reagh, photographer. For Constance, and the Memory of Rico, Charlotte and Alfred ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS RIC 0 LEBRUN The Paintings and Drawings: His Life Ellen C. Oppler The Joe and Emily Lowe Art Gallery is proud to pre­ exhibition a reality. We are also indebted to Dr. Born 1900 in Naples, Italy, Rico Lebrun recalled his writers-and the young Rico considered becoming a sent the exhibition and catalogue entitled: Rico Lebrun: Alfred T. Collette, director of the Syracuse Universi­ native place as a Iitown of dream and delight and journalist, for his gift with words was as evident as Transformations/Transfiguration, and it is pleased to ty Art Collections, and to Domenic Iacono, curator also of sordid life. A town of abysmal darks and his talents with pencil and brush. acknowledge the outstanding curatorial success of its of the University Art Collections, for their expertise dazzling lights ... "1 He recalled especially vividly the But he was prepared to earn his living as a com­ guest curator, Dr. Ellen C. Oppler, Associate Pro­ and support of this exhibition. people1s fervent participation in their patron saint's mercial artist. As designer for a stained-glass factory fessor, Department of Fine Arts, College of Arts and We would also like to thank Randall Bond of the annual miracle, when the petrified blood in its sacred in Naples that had secured a contract with Pittsburgh Sciences at Syracuse University. Dr. Oppler's master­ Fine Arts Library, and Dorcas MacDonald of Inter­ flask was expected to liquify as a blessed sign of Plate Glass Company in the United States, Lebrun ful selection of the artist's works and her creative or­ library Loan, for their able assistance. At Printing benevolence. To be in the midst of the people was sent to Springfield, Illinois, in early 1924. He chestration of the catalogue and installation have Services I would like to thank Margaret McComb, waiting for that miracle in the Cathedral of San Gen­ was promoted to foreman in the new plant and in­ clearly demonstrated the power and depth of Rico assistant director, and Paul Parpard, who designed naro "was a frightening and awesome experience ... it structor in stained-glass techniques, and when his Lebrun1s vision. the catalogue. was like being on the inside of a clanging bell." contract was completed in 1925, he moved to New The exhibition and catalogue focus largely on Student assistants played a large role in the realiza­ This collective and fierce will, convinced that it York City. paintings related to Lebrun's great Crucifixion Trip­ tion of this exhibition. The guest curator was assisted could change the inert into the alive, has never Lebrun became an extraordinarily successful com­ tych, located in the lobby of Heroy Hall on the cam­ by graduate students Erin Stimmell, Mara Williams, been to me a lost lesson. The miracle was that mercial artist during the next decade, drawing adver­ pus of Syracuse University, and highlight a new Stephanie Buck, and Rebecca Lawton. The exhibition dead matter gave way to faith triumphant. tisements and illustrations for such prestigious perspective for evaluating the work of this important Syracusewas installed by members of Professor University Margie ArtWhich goes forGalleries painting also. 2 magazines as Vogue, Fortune, and The New Yorker. l He was able to take two extended trips back to Italy American artist l whose concern with formal values Hughto s first-year graduate museology practicum It would take many decades of hard training and did not eclipse the human content of his art. class. to study fresco painting with an established artist in work before Lebrun could witness such miracles in Our deepest debt of gratitude goes to the artist's Finally, I wish to thank the following Syracuse Rome, where he also became friends with a fellow his art. widow, Mrs. Constance Lebrun Crown, without University administrators for their cooperation and student from the states, Lewis Rubenstein. Upon his As a young student, he attended several technical whose generous and tireless support an exhibition of continued support: Donald M. Lantzy, dean of the return to New York, he continued supporting himself schools, and experienced the last year of the war (see this scope and quality could not have been organiz­ College of Visual and Performing Arts; Rodger Mack, with commercial work, but his ambition now was to Chronology for details). He studied at the usual pro­ ed. She has lent superb works from the Lebrun Estate director of the School of Art; Gershon Vincow, dean paint murals. vincial art academy where a "frigid sort of and precious pieces from her personal collection; she of the College of Arts and Sciences; Professor David Many years later, a close artist-friend recalled neoclassicism was the rule" and the pupils produced shared her valuable documents, photographic ar­ Tatham, chairman of the Fine Arts Department; and Lebrun's amusing performance for a meeting of com­ IIsome of the ugliest drawings II he had every seen­ chives, and recollections, as did her son David Lois Applegate of the News and Information Office. mercial artists, responding to a young designer's horribly competent renderings of plaster casts.3 The Lebrun. The guest curator and her graduate assistant, This project was supported by a grant from the question: vanguard adult painters were not much better, work­ Erin M. Stimmell, were able to work with Mrs. National Endowment for the Arts. Young man (he quavered), when 1 was your age ing in a form of Impressionism that seemed to him Lebrun Crown in California. While there, they were Additional support was received from the William 1 had the Ivory Soap account (sententious), I totally inappropriate "to the carnal and tangible able to meet with artists who studied and worked C. Whitney Foundation, the Kennedy Galleries l New taught the whole country how to wash ... The quality of the town, which in fact only baroque with Lebrun. These artists, Channing Peake, William York City, and anonymous donors. Dr. Oppler masters of southern Italy had previously last week I worked I made twenty-thousand Ptaszynski, Teresa Sorce, and George Goyer were received a University Senate Research Grant which understood."4 Hence he frequented the museums and dollars (suddenly staccato) and I quit! (pause­ able to add valuable insights to their research. enabled her to travel and successfully complete her then simple-minded, childish, obdurate), 'cause I found inspiration in the old masters. Lebrun also felt I would also like to thank the Kennedy Galleries, work for the exhibition and catalogue. 6 lithe backwash of futurism and cubism" filtering din' like it. New York City, and the efficient services of its chief through to Naples, and was excited when he could Lebrun's several attempts to put his fresco training registrar, Fred Bernaski, and his staff. A very special Joseph A. Scala hear the poet Filippo Marinetti and the painter to practice-upon returning from Rome-were am­ thank you is extended to Syracuse University staff Director Giacomo Balla expound their theories. He expected to bitious but short-lived: a mural that he painted with members Ruth Ann Appelhof, curator of exhibitions; Joe and Emily Lowe Art Gallery become the greatest Futurist draftsman of the South.s Rubenstein on the top floor of Harvard University's Leonard C. Eichler, registrar/preparator and Betty Among friends of his father (a railroad official) Fogg Art Museum was soon walled over. His project, LaPlante, office coordinator at the Joe and Emily were university professors, classical scholars and IIS tory of the Mines," was never carried out, though Lowe Art Gallery who worked steadily to make this 4 5 4. MARY AT THE CROSS, 1947. SHELL OF MARY, 1948, Cornell University. it won him a Guggenheim Fellowship for 1935-36 and was renewed for a second year. Under WP A sponsor­ Close-up details of these paintings, with their for­ ship he designed, and to a great extent, painted a mal design and energetic paint surfaces, could even vast mural for the New York Post Office Annex, but be taken for early Abstract Expressionism. They that, too, was later covered over. Not until 1960 was testify to Lebrun's appreciation of the technical in­ he to realize his vision of a great and enduring mural novation and stylistic freedom of his younger con­ for our age, a 20th-century interpretation of Biblical He began sketching rusty old farm implements aban­ temporaries, even though critics invariably contrasted message: Job as "Hiroshima Man," and Noah as a doned by previous owners of the ranch. These cor­ (Nos. 6 and 7), usually identified as Mary Lebrun with avant-garde Action Painting. The battle grand paternal figure, "image of hope and human roded plows, harrows, and wagons-scattered like Magdalenes aggressively screaming their anguish, line between the two "opposing camps" is not as strength. "7 found objects over the land-inspired also Lebrun to whereas Mary, the bereaved mother of Jesus, appears securely drawn as the critics have pretended, and As instructor at the Art Students League during paint the first work to gain national recognition.