Christopher Le Brun

Christopher Le Brun is one of the leading British painters of his generation, celebrated internationally since his inclusion in Zeitgeist in Berlin in 1982, which brought together the main figures involved in the resurgence of painting and the Neo-expressionist movement. Born in Portsmouth in 1951, he trained at the Slade and Chelsea Schools of Art, London. Le Brun has served as a trustee of major British art institutions including Tate and the National Gallery and was an instrumental public figure in his role as President of the Royal Academy of Arts in London from 2011 to 2019. He is widely acknowledged as having revitalised the Academy’s reputation. Le Brun was awarded a Knighthood in the 2021 New Year’s Honours List for services to art. In 2026 Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery named a gallery after him.

Le Brun employs a mastery of touch and colour alongside a profound understanding of art history to engage with the major existential, aesthetic and formal questions of painting. A common ground, to which he increasingly refers, is the long tradition of the appreciation of landscape and nature - whether expressed in painting, poetry or music. His works are notable for their layered, complex, scintillating surfaces, which he describes as ‘non-ironic, primary’ responses which speak to the imagination, feeling for boundaries organically, playing out their appearance in front of you.