Honorary Host: Her Britannic Majesty`s Consul-General Annabelle Malins
Guest of Honor: Christopher Le Brun
All proceeds benefit the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art. Admission is $15

16.3.10 , oil on paper mounted on canvas, 44"x30"

Christopher Le Brun will discuss his art and career with the High`s Director of Collections and Exhibitions, David Brenneman. This program is free and seating is limited. Tickets are available through the Woodruff Arts Center Box Office at 404-733-5000.

The exhibition at Thomas Deans comprises a selection of paintings ranging from 8 x 13 inches to 8 x 13 feet, as well as recent small sculptures and works on paper, 1994- 2000.
The show runs from Nov 19- Dec 31, 2010.

One of the important European artists of his generation, Christopher Le Brun (born 1951) will visit Atlanta for the first time for the opening of his solo exhibition at Thomas Deans Fine Art.

Christopher Le Brun rose to prominence in the early 1980s as the leading British artist of the "new expressionism,"a movement that revitalized painting with new and surprising formulations in extravagant reaction to the minimalism of the 1970s. His career was launched in London and was quickly furthered in New York and Berlin.

Throughout the 1980s, Le Brun`s work was featured in major exhibitions worldwide, along with that of German, Italian, and American colleagues such as Anselm Kiefer and Julian Schnabel. Over the succeeding decades, Le Brun achieved importance also as a printmaker, sculptor, and most recently, with his solo show in Berlin and a traveling exhibition in Great Britain, as a watercolorist. Two monumental sculpture commissions, one in the heart of London, prior to the 2012 Olympics, will be unveiled next year.

Neo-expressionism was recently (2008-09) celebrated in Tate Modern`s exhibition "Painting in the 1980s,"which included as a central work one of Le Brun`s early masterpieces, "Dream, Think, Speak." Christopher Le Brun`s work is represented in major international collections, including the Tate Gallery and the British Museum, London, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, among countless others. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts, London [1996], and has served as a trustee of the National Gallery of Art, London, the Tate Gallery, London, the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, and the Prince`s Drawing School.

As an artist, Le Brun has pursued a solitary path, producing a body of work that is both complex and important. The distinguished art historian John Gage has said of it, "He begins with a mood and only ends with a subject." [Oslo, 2000] Le Brun possesses a magical touch, and he sees his work as "personal, sensual, and metaphysical," an extravagant reaction to the concept of "relevance," fashion, irony, indifference, and shoddy craft. His work has been compared to that of the great British composer William Walton, whose music was once regarded as too lyrical but is now seen as having great emotional intensity and unforgettable form. And in the beauty of his surfaces, he has been called "the Watteau of the new expressionism." [Artforum, 1988]

_____________________________________________________________

About Thomas Deans Fine Art:
Thomas Deans Fine Art was established in 1983 and soon became known as one of the leading American specialists in British art on paper, 1750-1950. Since 2000, the gallery has expanded its inventory and exhibitions to include paintings and works on paper by Mid-Century and contemporary American and European artists, works by emerging regional artists, and contemporary photography.

The gallery has always placed a premium on education, introducing its clientele to artists, movements, and eras of intrinsic interest working with beginning and experienced collectors, casual buyers, corporate collections, and the design profession.

Works from Thomas Deans Fine Art have entered many museum collections, including such local collections as, the High Museum of Art, Emory’s Michael C. Carlos Museum, the Georgia Museum of Art, and MOCA GA.

With a strong academic background in the arts, Thomas Deans has lectured and written on the fine and performing arts for schools, museums, and opera and ballet companies across the United States and in the UK. He has provided chapters on British artists for the catalog of the collection of the St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts and for Margaret Barlow`s Women Artists, 1999.