Christopher Le Brun
(born 1951)

LeBrun was born in Portsmouth, England. He studied at the Slade School of Art and was one of the leading figures to emerge in the early 1980s, when his work was championed by the influential Saatchi family. LeBrun’s work has been characterizes as “grand, melancholy, and highly romantic” and is important collections throughout the world.

His Wagner series began as a commission from a private collector for four large paintings on the subject of the four operas that comprise The Ring of the Niebelung by Richard Wagner (1813-1883). The eight original mixed-media etchings derive from photogravures--the technique of transferring photographic images to an etching plate--of the oil paintings in progress, on which the artist then worked and transformed with conventional etching tools. The final etchings and paintings relate to each other in complex ways--ideas generated in the etchings subsequently found their way into the paintings, as well as the reverse. In a sense, he uses the medium of etching in the way some artists use drawings--to formulate ideas to be developed on canvas. The Wagner series was exhibited at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut and the National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.