The Genesis of "Genesis"

The Smithsonian Institution

The Genesis of "Genesis"Author(s): Peter SelzSource: Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 16, No. 3 (1976), pp. 2-7Published by: The Smithsonian InstitutionStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1556862 .

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2

The Genesis

of Genesis

Peter Selz

In November 1956 Rico Lebrun visited Pomona College in Claremont, Califor- nia, where I was installing a one-man exhibition of his work at the Claremont College Art Gallery in Rembrandt Hall. He again admired the monumental Pro- metheus fresco by Jose Clemente Orozco and was impressed also by the generously proportioned building, Frary Hall, whose dining hall the Orozco dominates much like a Renaissance fresco in an old refec- tory. During the visit Lebrun said that he would like to paint a mural in proximity to Orozco's masterpiece. The idea of two important wall paintings in a single building on America's West Coast was very appealing. I wrote to Dr. E. Wilson Lyon, then president of the college: "I am especially aware that the continuity of two great works by leading artists of two generations will be in keeping with the great tradition in Western art." 1

My resolve to pursue this project was supported strongly by my colleagues, the painters James Grant and Frederick Hammersley, both of whom had once been students of Lebrun's at the Jepson Art Institute in Los Angeles. At first Le- brun considered donating the mural to the College,2 while I became actively engaged in seeking a donor. Fortunately, soon after Lebrun's visit, I met Donald and Elizabeth Winston of Los Angeles, individuals of outstanding culture, dis- cerning taste, and great generosity, who agreed to sponsor the mural as a gift to Pomona College.

It must be recalled that this occurred in the late 1950s, a time when art-especially mural painting-in Southern Cali- fornia was under the dominance of Mil- lard Sheets, an artist, who, from once being an adept regional watercolorist, had adopted a decorative style for the embellishment of walls that combined misunderstood Cubist elements with popular motifs into an omrnate and fash- ionable style. Sheets, too, lived and worked in Claremont from where he dominated the art scene and received most of the architectural commissions (often doling them out to other mural-

Rico Lebrun, Genesis, early sketch, Rome 1960.

ists who carried out his style, which still dominates the buildings between the two Brown Derbys onWilshire Boulevard). By contrast Lebrun, who had painted a fresco for the Pennsylvania Station Post Office Annex (now painted over) in New York more than twenty years earlier and whose work called for large walls, had been a controversial artist all his life. Although he had lived in Southern Cali- fornia since 1938, he had received no mural commissions as he was neither willing nor able to compete with the prevailing Disneyland taste in mural decoration.

Among the Lebrun papers, donated by Constance Lebrun Crown to the Ar- chives of American Art, is a letter written to President Lyon on September 17, 1957, containing the project outline and enclosing full biographical notes on Le- brun's work and reputation as an artist. Dr. Lyon forwarded this material to the members of the Pomona College Board of Trustees, who in turn suggested that the artist submit sketches for approval to the Buildings and Grounds Commit- tee. Lebrun, Donald Winston, and I, however, took it as a matter of artistic-and indeed academic- freedom that an artist of established stature should be evalu- ated on the record of his previous achievement, or, like a candidate for a professorship, be judged by his own peers. I recommended that a committee, con- sisting of persons such as Richard Brown,

then director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Donald Goodall, former chairman of the Art Department of the University of Southern California, and the late Jules Langsner, an outstanding art critic in Los Angeles, would be quali- fied to make the necessary judgments.

No committee was appointed and for a while progress seemed to be stalled. In a letter of February 1958, Rico Lebrun wrote: "The general aura of doubting conditionals has not failed to impress me negatively to the effect that this enterprise may very well turn out to be one deeply conditioned by the ideas of oth- ers, and therefore a chore rather than ac- complishment forme. I have come to the realization that Winston, a knowing per- son as he seems to be was eminently right in his first demand that I be, to speak bluntly, permitted to do exactly what I pleased and as I pleased." This was followed in June by a matter-of-fact letter from Lebrun to the Buildings and Grounds Committee in which he said that he expected its members to be familiar with his work. He mentioned that his subject matter was to be derived from Genesis and that the work would "tend more towards the serious and tragic than towards the decorative and superficial." He explained that it would be impossible for him "to present a sketch to be for- mally approved and faithfully followed ... " and that on "two basic factors - the character of my work and the implied dig-

Peter Selz is Professor of the History of Art at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was also Founding Director of the University Art Mu- seum. His most recent book is Sam Francis.



3

Rico Lebrun (right) and James Pinto in front of a collage for Genesis, Spring 1960, Rome. Photo: Constance Lebrun Crown.

nity of the subject-you may at this time be able to reach a positive decision." 4

In October 1958 President Lyon informed Lebrun that the Board of Trustees had "voted unanimously to commission [him] to paint a mural on the east face of the curtain wall ... at Frary Hall." 5 That the project was eventually agreed upon on the basis of merit of the artist's work may set a precedent for future art commissions.

In a letter of November 1, 1958, Le- brun, then visiting professor at Yale Uni- versity, thanked Lyon for the favorable vote of the Board and informed him that he was in touch with architect John Rex for the preparation of the wall. Lebrun noted that he would work on sketches for the mural during his forthcoming res- idence at the American Academy in Rome and added: "I can only say that having to be in the same area with Cle- mente Orozco makes me wish to honor him with my highest possible tribute." 6

Having recently moved to New York to work at the Museum of Modem Art, I was elated to receive an enthusiastic note from Lebrun: "You did it, the mural was voted for unanimously. From the bottom of our monumental little heart we thank you. .. ." 7 A letter from Don- ald Winston to Lebrun dated two days later begins exuberantly, "Hurrah for the Executive Committee of Pomona," and

goes on to specify the amount of pay- ment to the artist from the donor.8

During most of 1959 while Lebrun was in New Haven and then in Rome, there ensued a long correspondence between artist and architect about the preparation of the wall. On February 6, John Rex, who had long been a close personal friend of Lebrun's, described the structur- al details of the "false" wall, a wall to be constructed in front and independent of the concrete bearing wall. This structure would allow air to circulate and would not crack, even if the exterior walls should.9 On March 1 Lebrun approved the idea and informed Rex that he was in touch with a muralist regarding technical procedures, the vinylite medium, and so on.10 On the same day he also wrote Donald Winston that he expected to have his sketches ready when he returned from Rome in the summer of 1960 and that he hoped the wall would be ready by then. He also broached the cost problems of wall and scaffold, asking if it was the donor's or the college's responsibility to pay these expenses, adding that he himself would take care of the fees of his two assistants and the cost of materials. 11

According to a letter of May 1959 from Lyon to Lebrun, "Mr. Winston is making a gift to the college of the preparation of the wall." In the same letter, Lyon also informed the artist that Po-

mona College had appointed Bates Lowry, then on the faculty of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, to be the new chairman of the Art Depart- ment.12 It was during Lowry's chairman- ship that Genesis was actually executed.

Prior to his departure from New Haven to Rome, Lebrun wrote John Rex about his aim as an artist and the pur- pose of his work: "I can only say that my hope is to bring back some work you will think good enough, and so help me god, I do paint for people I love and who love me: if I did not, I might be a Solitary Ge- nius, but that's a pain in the rectum: we are solitary enough for being born, and anything we can do to reduce that hell is good enough." 13

On June 26 Rex informed Lebrun (then in Capri) that the wall had been approved and added wistfully: "It has been a long pull, hasn't it? However time heals all wounds and murals get painted - if walls are available to paint them." 14

In a letter of August 29 from Rome, Lebrun expressed his preference for a movable scaffold of the type he had used years earlier when making studies of Sig- norelli's great frescoes in the Cathedral of Orvieto and also while painting the New York post office mural.15 Rex, however, replying to Lebrun's letter of re- quest to President Lyon for such a structure,16 informed him that it was not feasible.17

On September 24 Lebrun told Rex that Bill Ptaszynski and Jim Pinto would be his assistants on the mural and that Pinto would secure a sample of the finish of the wall, which must be smooth, but not too glossy or without tooth.18

Lebrun was an artist whose technical knowledge of his craft was truly astound- ing. In a letter to Rex he proposed that the "wall of the Last Judgment of Mi- chelangelo for instance, is 13 meters wide and 17 meters high and has an inclination of 28 centimeters! To this for- ward pitch has been ascribed the contin- ued legibility of the image and its excel- lent state of preservation.... Although my wall is not of such ample proportions, nevertheless this inclination of 28 centimeters seems to be a minimal require- ment to avoid dust deposits." 19 Actually the Frary mural, measuring twenty-nine by twenty-five feet, is not very much smaller than the thirty-three-by-thirty- three-foot mural on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. It is interesting to note that Lebrun was in Rome, studying Mi- chelangelo's wall, while designing his own. Rex advised Lebrun, however, against the sloping wall because of diffi- culties with architectural details at the points where the mural would meet the existing arches.20

In February Lyon wrote to James Pinto, then with Lebrun in Rome, in- forming him that the work on the wall



4

Collage (in scale) for the mural, Spring 1960, Rome. Photo: Constance Lebrun Crown.

had been completed and expressing his interest in a film documentation of the process: "I think Mr. Selz's idea of keeping a 16 millimeter record of the progress of the job from start to finish is very sound and we would be interested in do- ing this." 21 A film was actually made, but not approved by the artist, who did not consider it of professional quality.22

After working on the mural designs at the American Academy in Rome, Le- brun wrote his Report on the Pomona Mural 23 (August 1960) for Donald Win- ston. At that time Bill Ptaszynski presented to Wilson Lyon a three-foot pho- tostat of the preliminary cartoon for the wall and life-size details of the figures. In the Report Lebrun said that the mural was to be based on the Book of Revela- tions as well as the Book of Genesis. In the first pencil sketches of the total composition he placed the Horse of the Apoc- alypse- later to be replaced by the poign- ant figure of the smitten Job (in the lunette at the upper left). Job is the only

figure (in the final mural) not drawn from the Book of Genesis. Lebrun found he needed this tortured and crippled Man of Sorrows, reminiscent of his early Naples beggars, but now endowed with a new meaning: he referred to him as "My Hi- roshima Job." 24 Originally Job together with the Prophet Jeremiah was at the lower right. This space, however, was eventually to be occupied by the irrevo- cably entwined figures of Adam and Eve. At the left were figures from the Deluge - climbing onto the Ark in the earlier drawings; in the final version they are engaged in a senseless and desperate struggle to escape their fate. The great figure of Noah at the center of the wall, the ribs of whose ark echo the actual ribs of the loggia of the building, was there from the very beginning. Lebrun referred to Noah "as a tower, a mountain, a rock under cascades of surf . . . a fortress, a shelter, a protective paternal figure." 25

His head recalls sea grasses and a wilted, twisted, and dried Yucca plant found in

the nearby foothills. He was the nucleus of the concept and remained the center of the composition. Like the Ark, Noah had been there from the initial concep- tion. It is interesting to realize that in spite of a great many fluctuations and transformations, many occurring during the act of painting, the general composition was clear from the beginning. Con- stance Lebrun Crown explains that this is "attested [to] by the very first drawings, almost scribbles, done over morn- ing coffee in the wee hours at the villino at the Academy." 26

Documents in the Archives, especially letters written by William Ptas- zynski, a member of the art faculty of the University of California, Santa Barbara, yield remarkable insights into the creative process of the artist in describing how ideas and concepts were constantly revised. We learn how latent content is transformed into manifest content, how the actual work took shape.

Ptaszynski remembered, for exam- ple, taking some snapshots of the wall, while workmen assembled a scaffold to repair the ceiling of the foyer, and send- ing them to Lebrun in Rome. "Rico later mentioned that seeing the contrast of the human figure and wall area, the workmen being a mere 1/5 of the height of the mural surface, was a revelation that changed his sense of the true scale of the wall surface. He had no wish to over- power and diminish the spectator, rather the reverse was desirable, to evoke sen- sations of increased stature." 27 Scale was a crucial problem throughout the design; architectural mass and space had to relate to human dimensions. "The main trap to watch for was scale," Le- brun recalled, "neither too minute, else the forms would rattle, not too mam- moth else it would choke." 28

Furthermore, in addition to the problem of scale, the figures had to be visible and readable from three distinct view- points: from the loggia floor (the main vantage point); from below the steps; and from a small elevated balcony facing the mural wall. "All the figures have this multi-viewpoint," wrote Lebrun. "A single viewpoint on any figure wouldn't go. The figures all have a barrel-like shape to repeat the tremendously curved shape of the arches. If I didn't do this, they would look too small, like a pebble in a great box or like whistling a song instead of orchestrating it."29 In addition to the architecture of the building, the scale, and viewpoint of the people who were to use it, there was always the interesting supplementary concemrn: "Out of love and respect for Orozco, [Lebrun] kept an at- tentive eye on Prometheus for reasons of scale as well." o30

Lebnrun, assisted by Ptaszynski and Pinto, began working on the wall early in July 1960. Unlike most muralists who



5

Mural in progress, Fall 1960, Loggia, South Entrance, Frary Hall, Po- mona College.

Mural in progress, Fall 1960, Loggia, South Entrance, Frary Hall, Po- mona College.

would merely execute the design of care- fully drawn cartoons, Lebrun welcomed the element of Change. "Revision was continuous throughout the painting on the wall. The traditional procedure of completing a design, the enlarging trac- ing and painting was not followed by Rico at Pomona," Ptaszynski relates. '"We began by assembling on the wall several large size cartoons done in Rome (Adam and Eve, Job and Jeremiah, flood figures, and Beast of the Apocalypse). Pa- per was painted and cut to simulate the ribs of the Ark (for some time gaps remained for Noah and the right lunette). This collage was temporarily hung to the wall in sections with masking tape- and then was subjected to prolonged and ex- tensive shifting, filling in, eliminating, enlargements or reductions of figure sizes, mock-ups of toned paper, drawings and re-drawing in various media, and trial changes of figure identities-for a period in excess of six weeks. During this time Rico also did a great many drawings both large and small, developing his im- ages and exploring new ideas. Gradually this process shifted into a combination of collage work and painting over char- coal tracings from the cartoons.... Col- lage was frequently placed over painted figures to test ideas for revision of the painting. . .. Therefore, completion of sketches, working on the wall, and process of working were interrelated and si- multaneous, perhaps to an unprecedent- ed degree for a work so large.... " 31 In- deed, how could Lebrun have presented sketches for approval to the Board of Trustees, or even to himself!

The medium used by Lebrun and his assistants was a vinyl acetate resin, a plastic widely used in industry and noted for its durability, with which James Pinto was already familiar from his work on Mexican murals. Lebrun proceeded to dilute this medium to the consistency of an ink wash enabling him to transform areas even after they were painted on the wall: "Erasure was possible by washing the darks away with acetone to recover the white of the plaster wall." 32 The pal- ette of the mural was limited to black with an occasional admixture of brown. The white of the mural is the white gesso ground of the curtain wall itself.

The renunciation of color, the decision to give form to the tragedy and hope of human experience by means of only black and white runs parallel to Lebrun's foreswearing his superb bel canto drawing and all mannerisms: "Drawing should be above all, not a thing of art, but a tool for understanding." a Perhaps identifying with the grand central figure of Noah, Lebrun said after the completion of the painting: "...What I have to say, I say with Sartre, Kafka, Camus ... in the midst of disaster act as if you could mend that disaster every day." a



6

Mural in Progress, Fall 1960, Loggia, South Entrance, Frary Hall, Pomona College.

On January 31, 1961, President Lyon wrote a letter of appreciation to Rico Le- brun in which he stated: I shall never forget the sense of fulfillment which you showed and the reverence which we all felt the afternoon you completed the mural. I almost felt that my arrival at the moment had been divinely guided. The mural has been a spiritual experience for those of us close to it and over the years its depth will be communi- cated to those who have the privilege of seeing it. Because of your Genesis Po- mona has something more to say to its students and to the generations ahead.35

Rico Lebrun had signed the wall shortly before Christmas 1960. A dedi- cative reception was held on February 16, 1961. He had succeeded in creating a mural that stands up to Orozco's masterpiece in the same building. Leonard Bas- kin, upon receiving a set of photographs

in Northampton, Massachusetts, wrote a letter that is a rare and eloquent homage from one artist to another: Caro Rico, Jose Clemente can rest in peace. Hal- lowed ground has not been despoiled. A great new shaft of light and truth has joined with the titan and man continues to twirl at the burning center. Job, Noah, Eve have been torn from the Bible and have been made to stand witness for the unholy coupling of tenderness and horror, which is our age. Only you, Rico, were man and artist enough for this task.a3

The critic Seldon Rodman, review- ing the work in the New York Times, as- serted that "frescoes in Guadaljara [are] the only works in this hemisphere com- parable to the 'Genesis.' " But Rodman also pointed out in the same review that the mural had been "completely ignored by the nations's leading art publica-

tions." ̀ The relationship between Le- brun's searching accusations cast in their uniquely expressive personal style and those of the Abstract Expressionist certainly exists but had not become clari- fied. Both styles were concerned with ancient myths, made viable in contemporary form. Both were imbued with the affirmative act of painting itself. For both, the human situation was of greater importance than the formal structure. The apparent result, however, was very different, and Lebrun himself was as aware of this contrast as were his critics and colleagues in the East. By and large he stands as a controversial and solitary figure and the Genesis mural, a religious painting created during a nonreligious age, remains a unique act.

Martha Davidson, writing about the mural in the Art Journal, evaluates it cor- rectly as continuing "the great tradition of Renaissance wall painting without loss of a contemporary and personal style. Altogether it is a unique achievement of lasting value, both powerfully disturbing and gently optimistic." " Most illuminating is Lebrun's own-by no means modest - evaluation of his work, which he expressed in a letter to Donald Winston: I am sure you would like to know what in retrospect is my opinion of the mural I painted in Frary Hall. It is certainly the best and most conclusive work I have painted to date and without any preoccupation or worry on my part it turned out easily and nat- urally to be a good companion piece for the Orozco, neither straining at the leash to overdo, nor coming off inferior because of the mighty presence of Cle- mente Orozco. I have said several times now that if I had been a better painter the mural would have been a better thing. That however must not be mis- construed in any way whatsoever nor obscure the real fact that given my ca- pacities of the moment I poured all I had in the venture, redesigning and changing without hesitation until I got what I wanted.

I think both Orozco and I instinc- tively acted with wisdom and balance and gave Pomona two formal statements in the grand tradition, perfectly suited to the place and carrying a message necessary to the audience which frequents that place. Neither he nor I found it op- portune to explode with our maximum of natural violence and satire, thus avoiding getting involved in controversial subjects and techniques which would have been very out of place. Orozco's bloody bodies transfixed by bayonettes would have been as much out of place there as my more violent, grotesque and awesome figures which I so often repeat in my work. Each wall calls for a preliminary decision of the



7

artist to do what is needed without either compromise or extravagance. In that sense I think the Prometheus and the Genesis are to date unquestionably the two outstanding murals in the United States.

And of course if I deserve credit for having painted, you and Pete Selz deserve it for having had courage and vision.39

After completion of the mural, Le- brun had only about three years left to live and work. During this time he created not only his magnificent cycles of drawings for Dante and Brecht, but his incomparable group of sculptures as well.

In May 1964, soon after his death, a memorial service was held for Lebrun in front of his Genesis mural, for which John Ciardi wrote: "Rico made the human body his terrible metaphor and he wrenched and broke it, twisting it into his vision with the savagery of a saint's passion. His vision was brutal, but never for the sake of brutality. His violence was an assault on all that destroys man from within. Its victory is pity; and beyond pity, it is a praise of what bums through every destruction to make the idea of man tragic but exultant." 40

And in his memorial address, Leon- ard Baskin stated: "This prodigious man, this child of Grutnewald, laid bare the heart of man; revealed the lineaments of man's body, its wisdom and horror. ... Rico is for all times kin to Goya. And see the grandeur of Genesis here, before you, making of a wall a shrine. Rico like his Noah 'was a giant in his generation.' " 41

Genesis, 1960, Frary Hall, Pomona College, 29 x 25 ft. Photo: R. C. Frampton.

NOTES

1. Selz to Lyon, September 17, 1957, Rico Le- brun Papers, Archives of American Art. (Unless oth- erwise cited, all material is to be found in this collection.)

2. Lyon to Lebrun, December 15, 1956. 3. Lebrun to Selz, February 7, 1958. 4. Lebrun to the Buildings and Grounds Com-

mittee, Pomona College, June 18, 1958. 5. Lyon to Lebrun, October 21, 1958. 6. Lebrun to Lyon, November 1, 1958. 7. Lebrun to Selz, November 8, 1958. 8. Winston to Lebrun, November 10, 1958. 9. Rex to Lebrun, February 6, 1959. 10. Lebrun to Rex, March 1, 1959. 11. Lebrun to Winston, March 1, 1959. 12. Lyon to Lebrun, May 28, 1959. Bates Lowry

was subsequently appointed to the directorship of the Museum of Modem Art, New York.

13. Lebrun to Rex, April 30, 1959. 14. Rex to Lebrun, June 26, 1959. 15. Lebrun to Rex, August 29, 1959. 16. Lebrun to Lyon, August 20, 1959. 17. Rex to Lebrun, August 25, 1959. 18. Lebrun to Rex, September 24, 1959. 19. Ibid., November 29, 1959. 20. Rex to Lebrun, December 8, 1959. 21. Lyon to Pinto, February 4, 1960. 22. Lebrun to John Fuegi, August 25, 1963. 23. Lebrun, Report on the Pomona Mural, Au-

gust 21, 1960. 24. Ptaszynski to Selz, July 27 and 28, 1967.

The letters written to me by Bill Ptaszynski were prompted by questions I asked him about the mural while I was writing "Notes on Genesis" for the cata- log of the Lebrun retrospective exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum in 1969: see Selz, "Notes on Genesis," in Henry Seldis, Rico Lebrun, Los An- geles County Museum-New York Graphic Society, 1967.

25. Ptaszynski to Selz, July 27 and 28, 1967. 26. Crown to Selz [October 1967]. 27. Ptaszynski to Selz, July 27 and 28, 1967. 28. Lebrun to Joseph Kelleher, director, Art Mu-

seum, Princeton University. This letter is printed in Genesis: Loan Exhibition of Preliminary Sketches for a Mural at Pomona College, Princeton, 1961.

29. Lebrun, quoted in Elizabeth Poe, "Genesis: Lebrun," San Diego Magazine, December 1961, p. 94.

30. Ptaszynski to Selz, July 27 and 28, 1967. 31. Ibid., July 26, 1967. 32. Ibid. 33. Lebrun, "Notes on Drawing," in Rico Le-

brun Drawings, foreword by James Thrall Soby, Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1961, "pp. 27-28.

34. Poe, "Genesis: Lebrun," p. 63. 35. Lyon to Lebrun, January 31, 1961. 36. Baskin to Lebrun, March 10, 1961 37. Rodman, "A Mural Enterprise: Lebrun's

Biblical Painting Unveiled at Pomona College in California," The New York Times, May 28, 1961, part 2, p. 14.

38. Davidson, "Rico Lebrun at Pomona," The Art Journal, XXI, 3, 1962, p. 174. In this article Davidson also provides an interpretation of the sym- bolic meaning of the various figures of Genesis. For additional iconographic interpretation see also Selz, "Notes on Genesis," in Seldis, Rico Lebrun.

39. Lebrun to Winston, February 18, 1961. 40. Ciardi, 'The Creative Violence-In Homage

to Rico Lebrun," In Memoriam Rico Lebrun, Po- mona College, Claremont, California, May 23, 1964.

41. Baskin, memorial address, Claremont, Cali- fornia, May 23, 1964, typescript.

