Bryan Robertson
Catalogue Introduction to the exhibition Christopher Le Brun Paintings 1991-1994 at Marlborough Fine Art London 1994.

Bryan Robertson and Christopher Le Brun
Interview. Lindos, Rhodes. April 1997 and January 1998.

Caroline Collier
Exhibition review. Christopher Le Brun at Nigel Greenwood, London. Flash Art no.124 October/November 1985

Charles Saumarez Smith. Christopher Le Brun
Introduction to the monograph Christopher Le Brun Booth-Clibborn Editions 2001

Christopher Le Brun and Cecilia Powell
Constructive, Investigative and Truthful. Christopher Le Brun interviewed by Cecilia Powell on J.M.W. Turner and Watercolour. Published in the Turner Society News August 2006.

Christopher Le Brun. Giorgio Morandi
This essay was published in the catalogue for the exhibition 'Giorgio Morandi Etchings' at the Tate Gallery in 1992.

Christopher Le Brun. Representation
Paper delivered to the Royal Academy Forum. Published by Architectural Review November 2004

Donald Kuspit
Exhibition review. Christopher Le Brun at Sperone Westwater, New York. " ..the Watteau of the new expressionism..." Art Forum vol.XXVII, no.1, September 1988, p.136

Ebbsfleet Landmark
Artist statement and description of the proposal for a 50 metre high sculpture.

Eileen Myles.
Exhibition review. Christopher Le Brun at Sperone Westwater. Art in America, December 1988, p.154

John Aiken. Paradox and Modernity
Written for issue no.4 of the Slade Magazine c.1999. John Aiken is the Slade Professor.

Jonathan Glancey. A Chip off the Old Block
Jonathan Glancey on how a sculpture by Christopher Le Brun became the template for the office of the future. Published in The Guardian, 8th March 2004

Mario Cutajar. Fade into Darkness
Christopher Le Brun at the Art Center College of Design and L.A. Louver Gallery. Review. Artsweek March 1993.

Mark Francis. Interview with Christopher Le Brun
Fig-1, 50 projects in 50 weeks. 2000

Norbert Messler
Review of the exhibition at Rudolf Zwirner, Cologne. Artscribe International 1988.

Patrick Elliott. Four Riders
From Contemporary British Art in Print. Booth-Clibborn Editions 1995

Patrick Elliott. Seven Lithographs
From Contemporary British Art in Print Booth-Clibborn Editions 1995

Patrick Elliott. The Wagner Prints
From Contemporary British Art in Print. Booth-Clibborn Editions 1995

Stuart Morgan
Exhibition review. Christopher Le Brun at the Nigel Greenwood Gallery. Art Forum November 1985.

Tony Godfrey. Finding the Figure in the Landscape
Christopher Le Brun and his recent work. Catalogue essay . Arnolfini Gallery 1984

Patrick Elliott. The Wagner Prints

From Contemporary British Art in Print. Booth-Clibborn Editions 1995

In 1992 Le Brun received a commission from a private collector for four large paintings on the theme of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. By 1994 three of the four paintings had been completed: The Rhine, Siegfried, and Brunnhilde. In making the works Le Brun produced numerous studies and other paintings: he decided to record, consolidate and develop these in printed form.

The Wagner print portfolio contains eight etchings of similar size. Le Brun made several other etchings on the same theme, including two small etchings of Brunnhilde (subsequently issued as individual prints) and one large on of The Rhine. The size of the latter precluded its inclusion within the portfolio though the artist does see it as part of the same series.

The eight etchings are all developed from photogravures. Photogravure is a technique usually associated with nineteenth-century printmaking and is rarely used today. Essentially it is a process of transferring photographs – in this case of Le Brun’s Ring Cycle paintings – onto copper etching plates. The photogravure plates for the Wagner suite were made by Hugh Stoneman, one of the very few printers capable of carrying out the process. As an initial experiment four photogravure plates were made of one of the paintings. Le Brun worked on these plates (the images have never been editioned) and then proceeded with the complete project, ordering a total of forty further plates of paintings from the Ring Cycle project.

Le Brun began, then, with copper plates bearing etched reproductions of his own paintings; he then proceeded to alter the plates with conventional etching techniques. He made relatively few alterations to some of the photogravure plates but substantially reworked others.

Le Brun’s painting and etching now relate to one another in complex ways; ideas generated in his paintings and later reintroduced into subsequent etchings. In a sense he uses etching in the same way that some artists use drawing, formulating his ideas in the medium. The etching The Rainbow Bridge, LX, develops from a photgravure plate of his oil painting of the same title, only the photograph for it was taken some way before the painting was completed, so the finished painting and etching differ in fundamental ways. The second etching, titled Siegfried, LXI, was done from a photogravure of Le Brun’s painted study for the main Siegfried painting. Le Brun reworked the plates for these two etchings, erasing some elements by burnishing them out and adding to other areas. In the third etching, Fafner, LXII, Le Brun removed the sky that had featured in the original version of the painting and re-bit the plate with spit-bite. The painting was subsequently re-worked so now differs quite considerably from the etched version.

The fourth etching, Siegfried and Fafner, LXIII, was generated from the final version of the oil painting; and the fifth etching, The Valkyrie, LXIV, from an oil study for the Brunnhilde painting. The last three prints all develop from the same Brunnhilde image (the final version of the oil painting), though Le Brun altered them in different ways. The first, Brunnhilde, LXV, was heavily burnished’ the second, Brunnhilde II, LXVII, was heavily re-drawn and went through a total of forty proof states.

The Wagner portfolio was published by the Paragon Press in conjunction with Marlborough Graphics Ltd. The series was exhibited simultaneously at Marlborough Galleries, in New York and London, in October 1994, alongside the Ring Cycle paintings and oil studies.