Five Symbolic Images: Bronze and Plaster Sculptures by Christopher Le Brun

About

This exhibition by Royal Academician Christopher Le Brun marks the largest number of his sculptures brought together for public display. Known primarily as a painter, Le Brun came to sculpture relatively late in his career. He did not discard painting in favour of sculpture, rather he brought qualities of painting into the sculpture, so it is important when looking at his work to consider colour, surface and touch as much as form and symbol. A small, upright wing, one of the symbolic images that recur time and again in his work, became the start of an incredibly rich journey. The wing, horse, planet or disc, tower and figure that he brings together in different groupings form a type of carefully considered classical repertoire that give feeling and mood to his compositions in both two and three dimensions. Our exhibition includes both highly finished works in bronze and the plaster models from which bronzes either have been or will be cast.