Rico (Frederico) Lebrun (December 10, 1900 – May 9, 1964) was an Italy-born, Italian-American painter and sculptor.
Lebrun served in the Italian army during the last year of World War I (1917-1918) after which he spent two years in the Italian navy and studied at the Industrial Institute and the Naples Academy of Fine Arts. He worked with fresco painters Cambi and Albino in Naples.
As a designer for a stained glass factory in Naples, Lebrun was sent to the factory's new branch in Springfield, Illinois, in 1924 as foreman and instructor in stained-glass technique.
By 1925, Lebrun moved to New York where he became a highly successful commerical artist for such publications as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and the New Yorker. During this time, he married and together with his wife made several trips to Italy, where he studied fresco painting with Galimberti in Rome, and researched the Signorelli frescoes in Orvieto, Italy.
Lebrun served in the Italian army during the last year of World War I (1917-1918) after which he spent two years in the Italian navy and studied at the Industrial Institute and the Naples Academy of Fine Arts. He worked with fresco painters Cambi and Albino in Naples.
As a designer for a stained glass factory in Naples, Lebrun was sent to the factory's new branch in Springfield, Illinois, in 1924 as foreman and instructor in stained-glass technique.
By 1925, Lebrun moved to New York where he became a highly successful commerical artist for such publications as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and the New Yorker. During this time, he married and together with his wife made several trips to Italy, where he studied fresco painting with Galimberti in Rome, and researched the Signorelli frescoes in Orvieto, Italy.
Returning to New York in 1933, Lebrun worked with Louis Rubenstein on a mural at Harvard University's Fogg Museum (the mural was later walled over). He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1935/36 for a proposed mural project "Story of the Mines" (which was never executed) and worked on a WPA mural "River Flood" at the Pennsylvania Station Post Office Annex in New York.
Two California artists Gridley Barrows (who later became an architect) and Santa Barbara painter Channing Peake assisted Lebrun on the WPA project and were instrumental in persuading Lebrun to leave New York and go west to California, which he did after conflict with the WPA caused the abandonment of the mural and the breakup of his marriage.
Two California artists Gridley Barrows (who later became an architect) and Santa Barbara painter Channing Peake assisted Lebrun on the WPA project and were instrumental in persuading Lebrun to leave New York and go west to California, which he did after conflict with the WPA caused the abandonment of the mural and the breakup of his marriage.
Moving to Santa Barbara, CA, in 1938, Lebrun accepted a teaching job at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, met and married Elaine Leonard in 1940, and taught animation at Walt Disney Studios. Donald Bear, director of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art organized the first exhibition of Lebrun's work at the Faulkner Memorial Art Gallery in Santa Barbara.
During the 1940's Lebrun's work was shown in New York at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (which purchased his painting "The Bull Ring") and the Julian Levy Gallery gave Lebrun his first one man show. During this period of escalating artistic recognition, Lebrun suffered a personal loss as his wife Elaine died. Continuing to live and work in Southern California, Lebrun was appointed artist-in-residence at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and became an instructor, and later director, at the newly formed Jepson Art Institute in Los Angeles.
During the 1940's Lebrun's work was shown in New York at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (which purchased his painting "The Bull Ring") and the Julian Levy Gallery gave Lebrun his first one man show. During this period of escalating artistic recognition, Lebrun suffered a personal loss as his wife Elaine died. Continuing to live and work in Southern California, Lebrun was appointed artist-in-residence at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and became an instructor, and later director, at the newly formed Jepson Art Institute in Los Angeles.
In the years before his death of cancer in 1963, Rico Lebrun received many honors and awards for his work, such as the Temple Gold Medal from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Award of Merit from the American Academy in Arts and Letters and was elected a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
Lebrun enjoyed communication not only as an artist, but as a teacher and as a friend. He found time to teach at the Instituto Allende in Mexico (1953), as Visitng Professor at Yale University (1958), and as artist-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome (1959).(annexgalleries.com)
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