Rico Lebrun

Obie Bowman

Obie Bowman, architect and artist, was born in Santa Monica, California in April of 1943. Over the years Bowman attended USC, UC Berkeley, Otis Art Institute, Chouinard Art Institute and the LA Design Center.

Growing up in Southern California, Bowman witnessed the paving of the Los Angeles River and the suburbanization of the San Fernando Valley. These events set the course for his life, geared toward architecture in the natural environment. In 1971 he married and he and Helena moved to the Mendocino-Sonoma County coast in Northern California where he started his architectural practice at The Sea Ranch, a community located at the Pacific shore. Bowman became a noted and respected architect, winning numerous awards for his innovative designs. After semi-retirement they moved to Dry Creek Valley in the Sonoma County wine country where he began drawing in earnest, primarily using pen and ink.

Much of Bowman's work is rooted in the biomorphic aspects of nature. He considers California artists Rico Lebrun (1900-1964) and Jerald Silva (born 1936) as important mentors. This homage to Lebrun features a portrait of the usually intense artist as a teacher; one of his abstracted figurative images; and two human skulls, all part of Lebrun's very personal vision.

Rico Lebrun, painter, muralist, sculptor, printmaker, and commercial artist, was born in Naples, Italy on December 10, 1900. He studied at the Accademia di Bella Arti di Napoli in Naples between 1918 and 1922 and worked as a designer at a stained-glass factory in Italy. It was also during this time that he studied with the fresco painters Albino and Cambi in Naples. Lebrun emigrated to the United States in 1924 and eventually settled in New York where he quickly became a successful commercial artist designing for Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and The New Yorker magazines.

Initially moving to Santa Barbara, California in 1938, Lebrun accepted a teaching position at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. In 1940 he taught animation at Walt Disney Studios, and, the following year, Donald Bear, director of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art organized Lebrun's first exhibition at the Faulkner Memorial Art Gallery in Santa Barbara.

Continuing to live and work in Southern California, Lebrun was appointed artist-in-residence at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. In 1947, he was hired as an instructor at the newly formed Jepson Art Institute in Los Angeles, and, in 1951, he was appointed director. Rico Lebrun died on May 9, 1964, in Malibu, California.