Rico Lebrun

The Drawings for Genesis

In 1960, Rico Lebrun was commissioned to paint a mural on the entrance wall of Frary Hall. The resulting work, entitled Genesis, is one of the treasures of Pomona College. This exhibition brings together for the first time a large number of preparatory drawings for the mural, including several of the extraordinary, large-scale cartoons. Several of Lebrun's related bronze sculptures will also be shown.

The theme of Genesis occupied Lebrun for many of the last fifteen years of his life, and Pomona's mural brilliantly exemplifies the intensely personal nature of the artist's late works. Responding to cataclysmic world events--World War II, the continuing threat of nuclear annihilation, the disillusionment of the Korean War, the oppression of McCarthyism--Lebrun's monumental figures reflect the artist's time while making a timeless and universal statement about suffering and salvation.

Organized by Marjorie Harth, the exhibition celebrates David Lebrun's gift of three of the most important preparatory drawings and his promise to donate other related works in the future. Together with the mural, the drawings establish Pomona College as a center of Lebrun research.