Sir Christopher Le Brun: The leading painter on the homes that have shaped him

Summary

Podcast Episode Summary: Sir Christopher Le Brun: The Leading Painter on the Homes That Have Shaped Him

Podcast Information:

• Title: Homing In
• Host: Matt Gibberd and The Modern House
• Episode: Sir Christopher Le Brun: The Leading Painter on the Homes That Have Shaped Him
• Release Date: April 3, 2025

Introduction to Sir Christopher Le Brun In this compelling episode of Homing In, host Matt Gibberd welcomes Sir Christopher Le Brun, a renowned artist and former president of the Royal Academy. Knighted in 2021, Christopher shares intimate insights into his life, exploring how various homes have influenced his artistic journey. The conversation unfolds in Christopher and his wife Charlotte Verity’s Georgian farmhouse in Somerset, offering listeners a deep dive into his personal and professional life.

Childhood and Early Homes Christopher begins by reminiscing about his early years in Portsmouth’s Milton area. He describes his grandmother’s modest house in Perth Road, highlighting its significance in his formative years.

"I was born in Portsmouth, but to be more specific, South Sea. And first house I remember is my grandmother's house in Perth Road." [01:58]

He contrasts this with their subsequent move to an Edwardian house on Essex Road, emphasizing the excitement of moving into a bigger home with a front garden and back shed.

"It felt bigger. It had a Front garden. And I had a rather wonderfully... a little back garden with a shed." [02:38]

Balancing Shyness and Athleticism As the eldest of four siblings, Christopher reflects on the responsibility that came with his role. Despite being naturally shy and introverted, he was also exceptionally athletic, often excelling in sports at school.

"I was the fastest runner in my junior school... I was a high functioning introvert. And I like the beginning of that sentence, the high functioning." [11:48]

This duality shaped his character, balancing leadership with introspection—traits that would later influence his approach to art and professional life.

Art Education and the Slade Christopher’s passion for art was evident from a young age, earning him numerous accolades in school. His pivotal moment came when his art teacher connected him with the esteemed Slade School of Fine Art, where he studied for four years.

"I suddenly could see here was a person who lived here, but had been to the Slade, one of the arguably best art schools in the country." [16:30]

His time at the Slade was marked by ambition and dedication, especially following the passing of his father, which deepened his resolve to succeed as an artist.

Meeting and Life with Charlotte Verity The narrative takes a personal turn as Christopher recounts meeting his wife, Charlotte Verity, at the Slade. Their relationship blossomed despite an unconventional beginning involving a spliff.

"Charlotte would kill me for saying this stuff... How would you describe Charlotte when you met her?" [29:04]

Charlotte, an independent and equally shy artist, became a cornerstone of his life, providing critical feedback that fueled his creative process.

"Charlotte would kill me for saying this stuff... She's probably listening outside the door now." [30:35]

Artistic Process and Philosophy Delving into his creative methodology, Christopher explains his approach to painting as a joyful and continuous play of ideas, emphasizing spontaneity and emotional engagement over strict realism.

"It's play really. It's play with all the virtues of, of play." [38:30]

He discusses the importance of not viewing a blank canvas with fear but with optimism, allowing for a free flow of creativity that mirrors childhood play.

"It's a joyful. I promise you, it's joyful, man. I'm not encouraging you to start." [37:05]

Homes and Studios: From Limehouse to Camberwell to Somerset Christopher details his various homes and studios, starting with an artist-driven project in Limehouse facilitated by the Acme Housing Association. This period marked his first meeting with Charlotte and their establishment of a family home.

"We repaired the house and lived in it as a home and a studio." [26:28]

Their move to a Victorian villa in Camberwell, designed with architect Jamie Faubert, provided a harmonious blend of living and working spaces, allowing their family to grow while maintaining creative pursuits.

"He managed to slot a very considered piece of new architecture somehow in under a Victorian villa and make the whole thing work." [46:21]

Eventually, seeking a quieter environment, they relocated to a Georgian farmhouse in Somerset, illustrating Christopher's deep connection between his living spaces and artistic inspiration.

"It's symmetrical. Although the stone mason came and looked at it... He said, faint shade of the workhouse." [61:59]

Leadership: President of the Royal Academy Christopher shares his unexpected journey to becoming the President of the Royal Academy, emphasizing the democratic process and his commitment to maintaining the institution's independence from government funding.

"I did enjoy the responsibility because I used to enjoy working with the staff... But I think there was a sense, I was convinced." [58:09]

His tenure was marked by significant projects, including plans for Burlington Gardens, underscoring his belief in the importance of diverse voices in the arts.

Reflections on Career and Legacy In reflecting on his career, Christopher balances his professional achievements with familial bonds. He expresses satisfaction in both his artistic contributions and his role as a family man, contemplating the legacy he leaves behind.

"It has to be both. It has to be both." [77:47]

He emphasizes the importance of art being a product of both invention and observation, maintaining a fluid relationship with his creative process even as he ages.

"Spontaneity of my response to color is probably greater now than it was when I was younger." [69:39]

Conclusion Sir Christopher Le Brun's journey is a testament to the profound interplay between home, family, and artistry. Through tranquil homes and bustling studios, his life encapsulates the essence of what Homing In seeks to explore—the intimate relationship between our living spaces and our identities. This episode not only highlights Christopher’s illustrious career but also paints a vivid picture of the environments that have shaped his creative spirit.

Notable Quotes:

• "I can remember how exciting it was to move into a big house." (02:38)
• "It's play really. It's play with all the virtues of, of play." (38:30)
• "Most creatives are in that area [high functioning introverts]." (12:20)
• "The house is the backdrop to so many things and the fact that it can also be the backdrop to a new life arriving into the world, that's actually really quite a profound thing." (48:54)

Closing Thoughts: Matt Gibberd masterfully navigates through Sir Christopher Le Brun’s personal narratives and professional milestones, offering listeners an enriching exploration of how home and environment influence artistic expression. Whether you're an art enthusiast or someone intrigued by the stories behind creative minds, this episode provides valuable insights into the symbiotic relationship between an artist and their living spaces.

Transcript

[Christopher Le Brun]

Foreign.

[Matt Gibbard]

Welcome to Homing in the podcast from the Modern House. I'm Matt Gibbard. My guest today, very excitingly, is the artist Christopher Le Brun. Christopher was president of the Royal Academy for eight years and was given a knighthood in 2021. I first met him a few years back when the Modern House was selling his beautiful home in Camberwell. And then shortly after that, he had a joint exhibition in LA with my wife Fay. So I got to know him a bit better during the week. We were all out there together as well. But this podcast gave me the chance to go a bit deeper and I really enjoyed finding out more about his life story. Despite always finding himself in positions of authority, Christopher paints a picture of a naturally shy and introspective character, which I was quite surprised about. He and his wife Charlotte Verity, moved out to Somerset a couple of years ago and we had a good snoop around their studios and then sat down to record this podcast in their lovely Georgian farmhouse. Christopher gives me a fascinating insight into what it's like to be a professional painter, from the importance of the space he's working in to the rituals he goes through, and also what he's thinking about. He tells me about what it's like to live with another artist, how they need to give each other space and how they critique each other's work. And of course, we discuss the important houses in his life, notably the Victorian villa that he extended with the help of the architect Jamie Faubert. And it was Jamie's first ever project. I've got a huge amount of respect for Christopher and I must say I found this conversation so fascinating. I really hope you enjoy it too. And here it is.

[Charlotte Verity]

Christopher, thank you so much for having us in your beautiful house, your quite new house or two year old house. We will start at the beginning. So as this is your life in homes, what was your first home? Where were you born?

[Christopher Le Brun]

I was born in Portsmouth, but to be more specific, South Sea. And to be even more specific, Milton. And first house I remember is my grandmother's house in Perth Road. Tiny little house, two up, two down, flat front. And then I think when I was about five or six, we moved to Essex Road, which was a short walk from her, still in the same area. That was an Edwardian house, I think, three bedrooms, lived there very happily until I was about 18.

[Charlotte Verity]

Okay. And so if I asked you to remember what that house felt like, what would you say?

[Christopher Le Brun]

I can remember how exciting it was to move into a big house. Yeah, it felt bigger. It had a Front garden. And I had a rather wonderfully. A little back garden with a shed. And I went back to look at the houses recently and they all feel rather small, and the gardens are small too. But it was very exciting. And I also remember what was characteristic of the way it seems that people lived was that there was a front room which no one really went into, which is always rather dark and had a piano in it and a bit of unloved furniture, but was meant to be the best room. And my grandmother certainly had a best room. And that was. That was a tiny house. So the idea of not using one of the rooms, even though you had a tiny house, showed how important that, as it were, a bit of ceremony was.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah, exactly.

[Christopher Le Brun]

And it was the sort of house which didn't. That first house didn't have an inside bathroom, so there were lots of sort of china jugs and things in the. The bedrooms and for washing and a tin bath hanging up outside in the little alley. And I've got some photographs of myself in the garden which, frankly looked a bit bleak. You can just see the brick wall. I can't see anything else in there. My grandmother was a widow by that time, so there probably wasn't much help around to do. To do the gardening.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah.

[Christopher Le Brun]

But going to Essex Road was very. Was very exciting. I lived there with my three sisters, all of whom were born there.

[Charlotte Verity]

Okay, so are you the oldest, then?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yes.

[Charlotte Verity]

Okay.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yes. That's why I'm so responsible, you see, because I've got three younger sisters.

[Charlotte Verity]

Are you?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Am I responsible? Yeah, rather sadly, I think I am, yes. Yes.

[Charlotte Verity]

How does that manifest itself, then?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Well, let's put it slightly different way. My father was in the Royal Marines, so therefore there were ideas about how you should behave. And I think some of that came down to me, what one should be responsible for and so on. And later in my life, I think it's manifest in some fairly obvious ways. Which we may come on to later.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah, exactly. So if you think back to yourself at that young age in that home, what would you be doing? What kind of child were you?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Well, in the garden, I would be kicking a ball against a wall all the time, obsessively, or playing cricket against myself, that sort of thing. I was drawing. Art was really important to me. I think I was a funny mixture because I was very, very sporty. I was very athletic. I was the fastest runner in my junior school. I remember that clearly because we would set up competitions all the time, running from end to end of the playground, which I always Won, which eventually became rather a heavy responsibility and training as such didn't exist. But I just felt this burden of responsibility of having to win the race and that carried on into. By the time I was about 11 and went up to secondary school, the local grammar school and I became Victor Lou Dorham, which was the.

[Charlotte Verity]

What does that mean for the uninitiated Victor.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Victor Lou Durham is Champion of the Games. Winner of the Games. Which meant that I was the most successful athlete at running and jumping and all the other things we did, aged 11 and 12.

[Charlotte Verity]

And was this. Was this. Without training then? This was just natural ability or did you try?

[Christopher Le Brun]

I know it was ability. It was just. I could. I could run. I could run. I was. And I did a lot of sports and I did everything. I did football and cricket and always seem to end up. I can see a theme coming here, Matt always seem to end up as captain of cricket or captain of football, which my parents are immensely proud of. But it does come with responsibilities and you're slightly then isolated from your fellows because he's the captain, it's fine. But I did that all the way through. But at the same time I had this interest and passion, not passion, I get rather bored with the passion interest in art and so I had these two slightly conflicting worlds of sport and art.

[Charlotte Verity]

But out of interest, are you still sporty? Do you still run? Do you still play any games? What do you do on that front now?

[Christopher Le Brun]

I don't, I think because as a painter it's a very physical activity. I'm endlessly up and down a ladder, walking in the studio, carrying things. So I don't. I probably feel I should. And when people my age tell me they're circuit training, I feel vaguely guilty about it.

[Charlotte Verity]

So as the older brother with three younger sisters, that's quite a fascinating dynamic, actually. How would you describe how that was growing up? Because you describe yourself desperately trying to play sport on your own. Is that because they didn't want to play with you?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Possibly, yes. They didn't seem to quite get the hang of the competitive spirit in which I played the games and couldn't see the point of winning or even running fast. But I think their company, of course, was a pleasure. Although we were born in two different groups, as it were, because the sister next to me, Adrienne, there was a gap then before the two younger ones were born, so they seemed quite tiny when I was in my teens. In fact, I think when I was about 17 they would have been maybe just about three, two or three. So there's quite a, quite a gap there. And my sister loved dancing and acting and we were very different because I was paralyzingly shy and she was paralyzingly keen, if those two things aren't too contradictory. On as it were, showing off and dancing and performing. So I think a low point of my year was when we went to the King's Theatre pantomime. And there's always a point where it's normally the dame says, will boys and girls please come up to the stage? And I was shaking with terror at that point. And I think I probably had to be prized out from under the seat even as my sister was on the stairs running towards the stage. And later on I suddenly find myself giving a speech to a thousand people. I don't know how that happened, Matt. It's, I'd love to probe that actually.

[Charlotte Verity]

I think that's fascinating, isn't it? Because I would also identify, I mean I was paralyzingly shy as a child as well. Could you explain how that felt? How did that hold you back? What did that feel like?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yes, I remember at school I was effectively prevented by joining the Senate. The Senate had their own common room in the sixth form and had various duties because it meant you had to read the lesson in front of 400 boys. And I thought this was such a terrifying prospect. I'd rather not join the Senate at all and get the privileges of the common room in order to save myself one reading a term. Although on the football field or the cricket field, I was quite happy to go out and open the batting, you see, or take responsibility in a major football match. In fact, I once played at Fratton park, which is the home of Portsmouth, and even had trials for, for Portsmouth. But I had a, quite a serious accident at that time. So the alternative career of me as a footballer never been realized because of that.

[Charlotte Verity]

What was the accident?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Well, I, I, they had a, a day off at some reason. I, I don't know, the pipes would burst or something and the children were all given the day off and a great gang of us sort of ran all the way down to South Sea seafront and we got onto one of these landing piers on the shingle beach and we were playing up on this pier which is about, must seemed about 10ft above the ground, quite, quite high and somebody pushed me off it and I was a skinny little thing and I fell on my elbow, damaged a kidney really, really badly. So I was in hospital for a long time and that was just at the time when There were trials for Portsmouth Schoolboys.

[Charlotte Verity]

Oh no. So what effect did that have on you?

[Christopher Le Brun]

I'm not sure it had much of an effect because weirdly, I mean, three weeks later I was sitting my 11 plus okay exams. So it didn't, it didn't appear to affect me too badly. For some reason I've remembered the trials for Portsmouth Schoolboys more than I have the accident.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah, yeah. So I'm fascinated by this thing that, this, this, this very cripplingly shy boy.

[Christopher Le Brun]

I think crippling's overdoing it. I think it's sort of what they called normal. Normal shy.

[Charlotte Verity]

Normal shy.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yeah.

[Charlotte Verity]

But, but still that combination, I suppose they go together, don't they? The shyness with the responsibility. Because it's almost the weight of the responsibility that plays on your mind in a way. It's sort of wanting to do right by people, isn't it?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Well, I think it's. And also a certain degree of introspection. In fact, I was talking to somebody the other day and he said, oh, you're, he said you're a high functioning introvert. And I like the beginning of that sentence, the high functioning. I thought, well that's good. And then the introvert rather took the shine off it. But he said, actually most were creative people are in that. Are in that area. So maybe the introspection is what drives one towards wanting to achieve something.

[Charlotte Verity]

Why do you say most creatives like that?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Well, I think you need, you need a degree of introspection in order to be sufficiently self critical to get better at what you do. I mean, some people can be spontaneously good and continually improving, but in my experience, many, particularly artists are continually checking what they've achieved against either the Glorious Dead or their contemporaries.

[Charlotte Verity]

So tell me about the school. How did you get on at school in general? You've touched on it. But you were obviously artistic. Were you naturally artistic?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yes, yes, I seem to have been. I was always the boy, right through infants and junior who was the artist who was good at drawing. That just went on and on. When I got to secondary school, that still carried on. I started winning prizes and we had a story routine. The art master would set homework, he'd give us some subjects like flight or basketball or mosaic and we'd go away over the weekend, do drawings in, in these books. I've still got all these books upstairs. And you, you'd line up in a queue at his desk and he'd score them, he'd mark them and if they were good, you'd get an A. If they're very good, you've got an. A very good tick. If they're terrible, he'd shout, go away, boys. He'd yell at people. He'd reduce people to tears. So the stress of whether one's art was good enough was very vivid. So I used to get lots and lots of A's, and the more A's I got, the more drawing I did. So I've got books upstairs with hundreds of these drawings ranging across all human activity, from pictures of battleships to portraits and designs. So he's a very curious person, this teacher. He's not what you think of as a normal art master. I think he had a bad experience in the war.

[Charlotte Verity]

Do you think he. Did he have an effect on you somehow, though?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Well, I love the rewards and the recognition for the drawing. So that went for a couple of years. And so I went on from that to do O level art and then A level art and so on.

[Charlotte Verity]

So at what stage did you think, oh, this being an artist thing, this is interesting. This could be. I could make a life out of this?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Well, it was always interesting, except there were no. In the family, although my cousins were. There was some art in the family. A cousin became an artist. There was no precedent in the family background to what you do. So the closest week any of us could think of was becoming an art teacher. So the idea was I'd. I'd go off and study and become an art teacher. But the idea of actually being a professional artist wasn't any sort of reality, except there was that my teacher and sixth form, it's called Roger Standard, was really rather wonderful teacher. He put me in touch with a lady who had been to the Slade, and I think she must have been to the Slade in something like the 20s or 30s, a long time ago. And I went to see her and took some drawings and things like that. And it was the first time I'd been in a house which had lots of paintings and lots and lots of books. And she wrote off to William Coldstream, who was the head of the Slade at the time, and said, I've got this young man here at the local school and could you recommend an art school for him? And he wrote back and suggested a couple of different art schools. I think one was Falmouth, another was Farnham. But the main point of that story is to say I suddenly could see here was a person who lived here, but had been to the Slade, one of the. Arguably the best art school in the country. And so it gave me a little notion of what might be possible. So I applied for the Slade, and virtually on the same day that I found out I'd failed my English Literature A level, I got into the Slade, and there were only 12 places a year. So it was a very, very special, very, very special thing.

[Charlotte Verity]

That's amazing, isn't it? 12 in the year.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yeah.

[Charlotte Verity]

How incredible. Tell us about that, about your time at the Slade. What was that like?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Well, I loved it. I loved it. I can remember the interview really clearly. There was. It was in his study. There was William Coldstream, somebody called Sam Carter, who was a professor of perspective at the Royal Academy, and Patrick George, who was later to become the Slave Professor. And I was tremendously keen and enormously ambitious. And I'd done oil paintings and taken them all the way from Portsmouth and had them delivered to the room and all that sort of thing.

[Charlotte Verity]

Fury interview, you mean?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yes, yes. Up at University College, I think, actually the English master, who wasn't showing his disappointment that I failed his special paper, took us up in his old ambulance. So we managed to get the. Get the paintings all up there in this. This terrible old ambulance which you arrive at University College. Weren't allowed into the quad, of course. The Beatles. Yeah. Anyway, you asked me about the slate, but no, I had four. Four years there. Absolutely, absolutely loved it. But I was. I was tremendously ambitious. And one of the reasons I was ambitious, which we haven't touched on, but is relevant, is that just before I left for the Slave, my father died. And he'd been very ill for a couple of years before, so I'd had to leave my mother, my three younger sisters, including two quite young ones, and go off to the Slade on my own. So when I arrived at the Slade, I was probably in quite a complicated state where I could see the seriousness of art, and I was baffled by the way a lot of the other young artists treated it very indifferently or took it for granted, and I absolutely didn't take it for granted. So I think that that must have contributed to the particular drive I had, which took me through many years of feeling driven to achieve something as a painter.

[Charlotte Verity]

And your dad being a military man as well.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yeah.

[Charlotte Verity]

Is there something about that discipline in there as well?

[Christopher Le Brun]

In a sense, because I had a very good experience and admired him very much. My relationship with what you might call authority was entirely benign. So I didn't regard it as my job as an artist to be a rebel. Thought that was a completely separate issue to trying to achieve something as a painter, to make the beautiful painting so consequently, and if you come all the way right up to the Royal Academy, these structures of responsibility have felt benign and constructive and are structures that enable things to happen rather than things that resist things happening.

[Charlotte Verity]

That's so interesting, isn't it? Is that relatively unusual for an artist? Presumably you get both ends of that spectrum.

[Christopher Le Brun]

I'm not sure it is that unusual for artists, except we carry the, as it were, the responsibility for. I'm trying to find a word that isn't. That isn't the go to word like radicalism or something like that, or revolution. I'm trying to find some alternative just being objectionable because I think it may be a responsibility of the artists that our job is to be objectionable, to keep examining things and looking at things and testing things. But it is also pretty tiresome because in a way, if you want to create something of beauty, you do need a structure. And so artists don't necessarily do well in revolutionary circumstances. For example, as soon as I got to the Slade, which was in 1970, this is only two years after all the sit ins at Hornsey and the Paris riots and things of 68. And there were lots of students within the university going on marches and encouraging other students like myself to put your brushes down because that you are essentially a bourgeois lackey by painting and you're involved with the luxury trade and all this sort of thing and trying to get us to. Trying to radicalize us. And the university was very, to my mind, extraordinarily gentle with those protests and allowed it all, as it were, to flourish. But it flourished at the expense of one's work because there were endless meetings being called where, as it were, you needed to show whether you were pro or against.

[Charlotte Verity]

That's interesting. So you're painting a picture of someone actually that at that age, it sounds like you were very focused, very driven, very, very much about the work. Your father passing away was a really quite formative time. What effect did that have on you, apart from obviously giving you that focus. But it must have been hard emotionally.

[Christopher Le Brun]

I mean, I think it was immensely difficult because I really felt. I think it's probably putting it too strong, but not exactly holding the family together.

[Charlotte Verity]

Right.

[Christopher Le Brun]

But at points that may have been the truth, getting everybody through it.

[Charlotte Verity]

So how old are your sisters at this point?

[Christopher Le Brun]

I think my younger sister was. Let me see, If I've been 18 or 17, she would have been 15, 15 or 14. And the younger ones maybe 4 and 2, something like that. And then the other complicated things happen because my mother remarried and they moved to a much smaller house and they moved to a tiny bungalow which was so small there wasn't room for me. So I slept on the landing. I think it was. I think there was a bedroom downstairs and a bedroom upstairs in the roof. And there was just room for a single mattress on the landing when I did. When I did go home. So quite complicated. But I did, again, need to keep that whole thing going because I judged it was in my mother's interest for me to support her, although my entire being was saying, no, this is wrong.

[Charlotte Verity]

You mean her relationship?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yeah.

[Charlotte Verity]

Why was that, then?

[Christopher Le Brun]

I just think. I just think it was wrong.

[Charlotte Verity]

Okay.

[Christopher Le Brun]

And it turned out to be profoundly wrong later.

[Charlotte Verity]

Okay. So was she with him for the rest of her life or.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yes.

[Charlotte Verity]

Okay.

[Christopher Le Brun]

But again, like everything, it's complicated. There were good times and bad times, but it was. And I'm probably talking more personally than I intended, and we're probably off track here.

[Charlotte Verity]

Fascinating.

[Christopher Le Brun]

But actually, the fact is I needed to be utterly selfish for my work. There's no alternative to devote the time to it, but at the same time manage, I think, at my limits of my tolerance, something to keep it, as it were, together. And that happened. It was kept together.

[Charlotte Verity]

I mean, you having a mattress on the landing, did you. I mean, that's quite bleak vision, though, isn't it?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Let's not over bleak it.

[Charlotte Verity]

But I suppose. Was it symbolic for you of the fact? Was it just because you were the oldest?

[Christopher Le Brun]

It was because of the oldest. And also I didn't think about it too deeply. And as a student, you're used to starting on floors.

[Charlotte Verity]

Exactly.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Exactly. Who cares? Who cares? I'm gonna leave that for a couple of weeks. Let's just get on with it.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yes. But it was just part of a change, a big change. And the big change, effectively, was me leaving home. So it may have just accelerated that a bit.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah. So tell me about your mum. Did your mum work when you were growing up or.

[Christopher Le Brun]

No, she didn't. She worked later on after my father died, but while he was alive, she stayed at home and looked after the children. But she was a big influence on me because she was a very charming person who would sing and dance and was very creative, very clever person. She had a scholarship when she was young, but the war came along and she couldn't take it up. So all of that potential that she had, I think, was expressed in her, in her children. There is one story which I've always found extraordinary. She told me at one stage that when she'd Been a young girl, she'd answer the door. And her mother had told her never to answer the door to anybody. And she'd answered the door to a lady who was palm reading. And the lady offered to read my mother's palm. And my mother must have been in her teens at that stage. She read her palm and said, you will have a son and he will wear a top hat and go to Buckingham Palace. Now, she told me this. I must have heard this story when I was about 15 or 16. Really tucked it away. Never thought about it again. It happened.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Not the top hat. Charlotte wouldn't let me wear one. But everything about it is true.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah.

[Christopher Le Brun]

But it had the consequence that everything I did subsequently, she would say, oh, yes, well, yes, I knew that would happen, really. And it could be anything, which was exhausting because I couldn't surprise her, you see. But at the same time, it was rather magnificent because it showed complete faith in what I could do. And it may have made me. It certainly gave me confidence when I probably needed it at different points. I hope it didn't make me overconfident. But the circumstances of a life as an artist don't help you with overconfidence. Because it's continuously, as it were, difficult. So you need to be continuously self critical.

[Charlotte Verity]

So was she a great champion of yours then?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yes, absolutely.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah.

[Christopher Le Brun]

As she was of all my sisters, of course.

[Charlotte Verity]

So, moving on from art school, what will be the next formative home for you in your life?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Well, one of the problems when you leave art school is where do you live? Where's the studio gonna be? How am I gonna make a living? There still is a wonderful organization in London that was formed by artists Jonathan Harvey and David Panton. Called the Acme Housing Association. I joined that after a couple of years. And it enabled one to become a license holder of a house that probably only had 5 years life left in it. It was due to be demolished because at that time the GLC were demolishing acres. Acres of hundreds and hundreds of houses in the East End. So the ACME managed to get five years on these houses and put an artist in. So I lived in one of these houses. And this is the time when I first met Charlotte. So we had a house in Limehouse on Burdett Road. Quite a tall house. There was a couple of artists upstairs. We were downstairs. And we repaired the house and lived in it as a home and a studio. And we were given £400 to do it up. And it was quite wrecked. But all the people that Helped repair the house were artists. So the plumber was an artist, the roofer was an artist, the electrician was an artist. And that may sound a bit ropey, but actually they were all rather good. Except the electrician was rather worrying because he used to have a giant spliff dangling from his lips as he rewired the main circuit. Anyway, it never blew up and we lived there quite happily in this house. It was pretty rough, but it had a garden, but that was really important. And I went on to have a studio with Acme in Bethnal Green and later another little house in Bermondsey which we were able to buy because as license, with this license, it meant we had the right to buy. So we bought our house in Bunyard Road and lived there. And the children were. The children were born there.

[Charlotte Verity]

Okay, so you, you mentioned Charlotte there. Charlotte Verity, who's your long standing wife? How did you guys.

[Christopher Le Brun]

I thought you say long suffering.

[Charlotte Verity]

Oh, sorry, that's close to a slip of the tongue. Yeah. How long have you been together? When and how did you meet?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Well, we met. Met at the Slade and we married in 1979.

[Charlotte Verity]

Okay. Love at first sight.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yeah. Actually there's a talk about spliffs. This comes into it. I'm giving far too much information here, Matt. This is.

[Charlotte Verity]

What's a spliff?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Shocking. What is a spliff? I know by incredible chance my roommate when I was at the Slate, it was an American mathematician. And one day he came home and he said, he said, you won't believe it. He said, I met this most beautiful girl. Said, oh yeah? He said, she's at the Slate. At which point my ears pricked up. And he said, I think what I'm going to do, I'm going to bring her home for supper. I'm going to make a meal here. I said, great. And his idea of cooking was pretty dreadful. For example, he believed a baked potato should be put in the oven with its mud on it. You see, I pointed this out only when it had gone onto my plate. Anyway, so he invited her back and it was Charlotte. But before she arrived, he'd said, look, try some of this. I don't know what it was. It was something rather tiny, weeny, thin, cigarette thing. So I smoked this and became mildly hysterical. And then Charlotte turned up. So she sat through a dinner where I was just talking gibberish. For some reason it didn't put her off. But my relationship with my American friend rather went downhill.

[Charlotte Verity]

Did it go downhill because of your interest in Charlotte or.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yeah. He'd do dreadful, corny things. He'd turn up in the main quad of University College with a. With a single flower. That's not what you want, really.

[Charlotte Verity]

You can do better than that, can't you?

[Christopher Le Brun]

I certainly did.

[Charlotte Verity]

So how would you describe Charlotte when you met her?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Charlotte would kill me for saying this stuff. She's probably listening outside the door now. It's all right, darling. Fine.

[Charlotte Verity]

Cut. Yeah. What was Charlotte like then, when you met her? I mean, what was it about her that obviously, you know, I mean, she's a very beautiful woman and you can see that. But in terms of her sort of spirit, what was she like?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Very independent, knew her own mind, rather private, equally shy. Gosh, there's a recipe for a night out. Two shy people. But she'd also had a different background. She'd been to boarding school. Had a sense, and I think a lot of her sense of independence may have come from that. And a rather wonderful artist, I thought so. I admired her work as well.

[Charlotte Verity]

How long has it been now?

[Christopher Le Brun]

You're giving me a look though, if you want me to add more. But I now feel.

[Charlotte Verity]

No, I'm just, you know, I mean, I want to ask you about this, obviously, because you're both professional artists and you've been together for a very, very long time. That's so fascinating. And is that relatively unusual? Have I got that right? That's relatively unusual.

[Christopher Le Brun]

No, no, I think it's more usual than you, than you think, coming back to the cliche of the artist. In our experience, many of our friends are. Have. Have stayed together all their lives and brought. And brought up families. And I think it puts undue pressure on young artists. The thought that, as it were, family life is incompatible with this type of self centeredness that an artist might need. It obviously depends, but actually I think it is possible and I think it adds to. I think it adds to one's experience.

[Charlotte Verity]

Because you'd have thought, wouldn't you, the cliche would go, that there would only be space for one artistic temperament in a way.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Well, when you say temperament, it sounds like you mean difficult temperament or. Well, I just mean moody temperament.

[Charlotte Verity]

Well, I more mean. I more mean that. It's that sort of introspection you talked about. Actually, to be an artist you have to spend a lot of time in your own head, don't you?

[Christopher Le Brun]

I think you need to give each other masses of privacy. For example, people often say, when they find out we're both artists. Do you share a studio? Absolutely not. You are joking.

[Charlotte Verity]

Why did you Say that.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Well, two reasons. Firstly, you need to be. I find I need to be entirely on my own to make my work. And secondly, familiarity is not useful when it comes to requiring criticism because no one will tell you what they really think about your work. Everybody has some reason to flatter you or to be critical, except someone you're so close to, they will tell you what they really think. So consequently, I only go to her studio where she invites me to, and the same the other way around, which means she comes into my studio, she sees the work as it were, freshly responds to it quickly and truthfully, because that reaction, you'd be lucky to find that from anyone else because the other people have a professional relationship or they're rivals or their friends, they want. Want to charm you. It could be anything like that. So keeping separate studios is very important. And occasionally there's directions you want to pursue in your work that you want to just hold back. You hold back, you're unsure about them.

[Charlotte Verity]

That's really interesting. So do you show her every piece that you do? You.

[Christopher Le Brun]

I show her the finished pieces when I think they've got to a stage.

[Charlotte Verity]

Okay. So when you're happy to reveal it.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yeah.

[Charlotte Verity]

She can see it.

[Christopher Le Brun]

And it's often quite an annoying. It's quite. It's quite annoying.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Because. Because you know that thing where you've. You've done something and a tiny part of you. Tiny part of you is trying to get away with it.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Christopher Le Brun]

She went laying and she will go in laser beam on that little corner, you know, that's too red. It's too wishy washy. What on earth are you doing? All this sort of thing. I'm quite robust. I can stand up to it. But it's just annoying because you knew you were just trying to slip it past and you go back in and then maybe the painting gets better. When I go and talk to her, the danger is of I might upset her. She's less robust than I am. But through tears, she will say, thank you.

[Charlotte Verity]

That'S some strong critique.

[Christopher Le Brun]

And then we get into quite a complicated series of apologies where we admit that it is best to say what you really think.

[Charlotte Verity]

That's so interesting, though, because what you're saying is you really trust her judgment.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yes.

[Charlotte Verity]

And she's always right and she's teasing something out of you that you already know.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yes. And if she's not right, then I think that's a genuine discussion.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah.

[Christopher Le Brun]

About something. But annoyingly, 99 times out of 100, she's right.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah. How much credit would you give each other for your work in that case? She's got to be in your work in some way.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Gosh, I don't know. I think we have a simple way of explaining the difference in our work, which is that I make everything up. I know it's turning slightly male, female, isn't it? I make everything up. And she pays attention to what she sees.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah, yeah.

[Christopher Le Brun]

So she will regret, Will rely on the truth of her observation, and I'll rely on the truth of my invention. And that's to drastically oversimplify it, because her work is, of course, full of imagination, and I hope my work is full of observation, but it gives you a sense of how we've managed to keep parallel tracks and keep our own space.

[Charlotte Verity]

So Charlotte's work, for people that don't know it, she paints a lot of flowers, doesn't she? Things from nature.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yes.

[Charlotte Verity]

And yours, obviously, is much more abstracted. So I think that is, as you described, a really, really interesting relationship. The slightly, the yin and the yang. To explain to people how you conceive of a painting, I'd be fascinated to know. You've got a blank canvas. What? Please tell me what you. Where do you go? Because that's terrifying.

[Christopher Le Brun]

What do you do? No, it's not. It's not terrifying at all. It's joyful. I promise you, it's joyful, man. I'm not encouraging you to start. No, but. Okay, it's joyful because. Because anything's possible. It's the best time. It's the best time. Full of hope.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Optimism. But the other thing to remember is it's in a continuity. It's not like the first empty white canvas ever. There were many, many before it, and you were in continuity. So it's often in a sequence of ideas or thoughts or feelings which flow from one to the other.

[Charlotte Verity]

Okay.

[Christopher Le Brun]

And in the studio, it's not as if I've got the one white painting that I approach reverentially up steps towards. There may be 10 of them in the studio. And so I'm doing something on this one and something like that. But they're often begun rather casually. You've just got to get it underway. Just got. Got to get going. The idea that from the first stroke to the last stroke, it's an endless sequence of perfect moves is to misdescribe it. It's actually an endless sequence of errors and shortcomings and mistakes and, oh, heck, and all that sort of thing before finally something might get traction.

[Charlotte Verity]

So interesting.

[Christopher Le Brun]

It's, it's, it's play really. It's play with all the virtues of, of play. In fact, we were at a family event at the weekend and it was really clear to me all the adults were standing up, having conversations and drinks. There was a little boy, age five or six, in amongst our legs. Making something out of some magnetic thing was completely wonderful. He was about, must be about five or six. He'd decided what the priorities were. He'd looked at the idea of standing around and having a drink or having a sausage roll or playing and he decided to play. He made the right choice. Every other adult in the room, I think, was envying him. But my point is he cut himself off in his play and his happy invention. And I think he was joined by another child after, after a while. And I think effectively it's the same thing that, as it were, I've entered that. That place where I can just think freely, as it were, without responsibility for some time. As the painting approaches its conclusion or completion, then the world does start to impinge on one a little bit. What's going to happen to it? Am I going to show it? Is it any good? All these other non art judgments start to come in. But in the initial phases, there's no difference between the little boy playing on the floor and me with my paints in front of the. In front of the canvas. So it's in the early stages. I don't want to paint too rosy a picture. But as it were. But in the early stages it's utterly liberating. But later on, the full implications of what one's doing start to occur.

[Charlotte Verity]

And did I read that you. First thing in the morning when you go into your studio, you'll try not to look at the work so that you can almost surprise yourself with it and see it with fresh eyes, Is that right?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yes, I do that regularly.

[Charlotte Verity]

That's so interesting.

[Christopher Le Brun]

In fact, I did this morning before you came. I went to the studio and I went to the studio, looking at the floor, making sure I couldn't see the painting on the back wall until I suddenly throw a glance at it. Because in that instantaneous moment, the painting will, as it were, announce its status.

[Charlotte Verity]

And what did you think?

[Christopher Le Brun]

It was fine. It was fine.

[Charlotte Verity]

So you think that is now complete?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yes, but give me a fortnight and something else may happen.

[Charlotte Verity]

Okay.

[Christopher Le Brun]

It's a series of tests that the painting needs to resist. And if it can resist all those tasks, different moods, different times of the day, at night, first thing in the morning, half light if it can stand up to all that, it'll be fine.

[Charlotte Verity]

How interesting. And it's got to get past Charlotte as well. That's a lot of layers.

[Christopher Le Brun]

That is a lot of layers. I don't know which the most difficult one is.

[Charlotte Verity]

That's so fascinating. I love that. So how, how long could it stay on your wall just being slowly adjusted or not quite right?

[Christopher Le Brun]

It could be months. It could be months and months. Some. I mean, all pictures are all pictures of puzzles and, as it were, for which there's no solution. And you don't want there to be a solution. But they need to, they need to have a sort of self sustaining enigma that stays fresh. That isn't the same as saying the painting has a secret. Because if it does have a secret, I don't know, I don't know what it is, but it's something to do with time. And for example, the painting we're looking at on the wall here, that was painted 40 years ago. It still intrigues me. And that's been tested and tested and tested as it were, by being exhibited and all sorts of things.

[Charlotte Verity]

And tell us what that was painted for.

[Christopher Le Brun]

That was painted. It's the design for the safety curtain at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. And in fact, you look at the top, do you see the scooped shapes at the top above it would have been the coat of arms, the royal coat of arms. And the colors were all designed to go in with the decor. So it was commissioned, it was informally commissioned in 1983. And it was all agreed and passed. All the board came to my studio. I remember looking out the window and seeing all these black. I know it's a cliche, but seeing the, the black limousines of the trustees of the Royal Operas drawing up in Bethnal Green and coming in one by one to look at the painting and all agreeing it, wanting it. But it was blocked because the, the GLC fire safety officer, who for some reason had immense power, decided he wanted the words fire safety curtain written right across the front of it. And as you can see, it's a big painting. It depicts a landscape. And John Tooley, who was the director at the time, was up to his ears in trouble at the Opera House. And they didn't really have the political energy to fight it. It just never happened. But if there's anyone out there listening, it's ready to go. It is 60ft, it's 60ft wide and 50ft across, but apart from that, it's ready to go.

[Charlotte Verity]

It's a very beautiful thing.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Charlotte Verity]

So I first met you at your home in Camberwell, which is a very beautiful double fronted Victorian villa. And you were there for many years, weren't you? You and Charlotte and raised your kids there.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yes, yes.

[Charlotte Verity]

So tell us about that house. What does that place mean to you?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Well, that was. There was a estate agent called Roy Brooks.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Who was well known for telling the truth about his houses. And so one would look up his advertisements just for fun, apart from even if one wasn't shopping. And we were looking, we were living in Bermondsey, but we were looking at Blackheath and places to find a bigger house that we could possibly afford because there was another child on the way. And there was this house. I didn't even know where it was, but it looked like a doll's house. Three windows at the top, two door, little path, wide eaves, two chimneys on either side. Just the perfect emblematic house in Camberwell. And then we found out it was in a place called Love Walk. Well, it's. That's it, that's the one. So we came and saw it and it was, we were. And it was a really, really, really nice house. It had a cellar. Interestingly, it showed you how people lived in those days because it didn't, it didn't really have a kitchen on the ground floor. And you realize that they think the food was probably prepared downstairs and brought up and there was a paneled room downstairs. I think possibly someone might have lived there to look after the people who lived in the house. So when we were there, we, we put in a kitchen, dining room and all those sort of things.

[Charlotte Verity]

And you used an architect to do that, didn't you? Tell us about that.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yes, we, some friends had used David Chipperfield to do their house in Camden and we, we enjoyed it very much what they'd done and found out that the project architect was Jamie Fobert, who was at that time working for David. And we were Jamie's first project as an independent architect.

[Charlotte Verity]

That's amazing. He's gone to do a few things, hasn't he?

[Christopher Le Brun]

He has. I'm very, very proud of the fact that Jamie was happy to do it and. But this is actually indicative of what Jamie's like because I thought of it as a kitchen extension, you see. Can you just put a bit here, a bit of glass here, a bit of that. And Jamie came in and said, no, I'm going to make a bit of architecture. He didn't say that, but that's effectively what he Did. Made substantial walls, changed the direction of the view, put in a very handsome floor and managed to slot a very considered piece of new architecture somehow in under a Victorian villa and make the whole thing work, which I think you probably agree it did.

[Charlotte Verity]

That was fantastic.

[Christopher Le Brun]

It did. And it kept us there because it was a family room, it meant we were able to carry on living there for some time.

[Charlotte Verity]

What's your happiest memory of being there?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Oh, goodness me. Might have been our youngest being born.

[Charlotte Verity]

There in the house.

[Christopher Le Brun]

In the house.

[Charlotte Verity]

That's amazing.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yeah. Well, all three were born at home, were they? Yeah.

[Charlotte Verity]

What was that like? I was thinking such a brave decision. Well, we actually, Faye and I tried home birth first time around and it didn't quite end up like that. But it's a brave thing.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Well, the first time it wasn't to do with courage, it was to do with circumstances. Because at that time, and wait for me to get to the end and you'll understand. I had an MG sports car and I love this car, but it's very low to the ground. So when the whole thing started, because it was Charlotte's first child, she didn't really, really quite recognize the signs. She decided it was meant she should go and do some gardening. So she was out gardening when she suddenly said, actually, I think something is happening. And the midwife came around, by which time it was quite on the way and the midwife said, can we get in the car and go to the hospital? And Charlotte said, I am not getting in that car. She said, well, either getting in the car or you're going upstairs. So we managed to get her upstairs and she had the baby. Now, as you all have noticed, I've slightly truncated the story.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah, that's incredible.

[Christopher Le Brun]

But since she was such a good mother and it was a happy event and the doctor was thrilled because he didn't even have to attend.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah.

[Christopher Le Brun]

So it was just asking them. One midwife.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah. Wow, that's amazing.

[Christopher Le Brun]

And that gave the confidence to. For the next two.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the home is.

[Christopher Le Brun]

I never get this story quite right, Matt, so I'm probably in big trouble now. I think you've got. You've got the broad drift of it.

[Charlotte Verity]

I get the vague idea.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yeah, that's good.

[Charlotte Verity]

But the home is the backdrop to so many things and the fact that it can also be the backdrop to a new life arriving into the world, that's actually really quite a profound thing, isn't it? How was it for you, that experience of being in those four walls as your Children came into existence.

[Christopher Le Brun]

We were very happy that. I don't think I've thought too deeply about it, Matt. Actually, it just seemed to work well. And we had. There was another. A couple up the road, and they had children at the same time. But what I was very aware of is that the street had a rhythm and the rhythm was a rhythm of children and then not children and then children. So when there were a certain number, they'd play outside because it was a cul de sac, then it would change. But I felt that very, very strongly, that rhythm. Yes. And there was a young couple came and lived opposite towards the end of our time there and had children. So that was important part of it. And I thought of it as a family house so we could all be together and big enough for all of us, and. Which has led onto this place. Because the family grew. Kept growing.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yes, exactly. So you outgrew the house.

[Christopher Le Brun]

We outgrew the house. And we also grew close to the limit of our ideas of what we wanted to do in the future, which had always been to. I can illustrate it with an anecdote. There was a person born on the same day in the same year, in the same month as myself, who lived in this. Who lived nearby. I used to see him walking past every day. And one day it struck me with something. You've already realized that this is me, eventually a man exactly of my age. And I thought to myself, do I want to end my years here? Is there something else we can do? And both of us love the countryside and nature is absolutely critical to our work. And because my time at the Royal Academy had come to an end, we could. Suddenly it was possible to move. At the same time, there were grandchildren arriving and I wanted to meet a family house where we could live. And also somewhere I could work and have studios. Whereas in Camberwell, I had to get on my bike and cycle for some little way.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah. And Charlotte was working in the house.

[Christopher Le Brun]

And she was working in the house, which was. Which she. She did wonderfully well at. But it wasn't ideal. Needed to be that way for. For some years, for. For her to be around. But it was a constraint on her as an artist.

[Charlotte Verity]

How did Charlotte feel leaving that place behind, then?

[Christopher Le Brun]

I don't know. You must ask her, Matt. Except I was worried. Going back there, I'd feel very nostalgic. And I've been back a few times and I don't feel nostalgic at all. And I felt something really clearly, which is, it wasn't our house. It's a house. What I mean by that is other people have lived there before and other people will live thereafter. So although we were briefly in the house, the people that came after, I felt really pleased because I thought the house would come to life again. Two little girls there and they were going to do a bit more to the house things that we hadn't got round to or run out of energy. In fact, one of the things about this house that was most touching, meeting a gentleman who used to live here some time ago, he came back and he said, oh, I'm really pleased you're here, because I think this house is going to be loved again. It's an emotional way to put it, but it's a real way to put it. But going back to the house in Love Walk, I'm happy to see it having another life.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah, I like that. You're right. It is a rhythm.

[Christopher Le Brun]

It's a rhythm, yeah. Yeah, that's really lovely. And also, I think houses had more of a rhythm in the past because people not only were born in the houses, they died there. So there was a sort of depth of human experience in every individual house. I'm sure it's absolutely true of this one. That I think is not so much the case, maybe for. For all sorts of reasons.

[Charlotte Verity]

I mean, it's a morbid question, but would you. Would you have been happy to die there? Would you have been happy to see out your days there? Or did you know that there was always going to be another home?

[Christopher Le Brun]

I hadn't really quite thought about it like that, but at a certain point, one does think about these things and I think. Let's go back to the blank canvas question. I feel at my best thinking forwards, and I think in my 60s I felt able to think forwards, and now in my 70s, I'm able to think forwards and I think I'm the better for it. So although the question is a real one, you'll notice I haven't answered it.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah, yeah.

[Christopher Le Brun]

It's such a productive time.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah. Do you feel more productive now than at other times?

[Christopher Le Brun]

In a very strange way, I feel as productive, if not more productive now, than I did when I was 18.

[Charlotte Verity]

Why is that?

[Christopher Le Brun]

I think I'm more. I'm not sure I'm more confident, but I think I'm more able to play. I think, for example, the grandchildren see me as a co conspirator in messing around, but I think that's my job. I also think it's my job as an artist to essentially be inventive. And to play and to do things for the sake of them. It must bring pleasure and, I hope some sort of insight, but it absolutely must bring pleasure, both to me and the doing of it. And for you, in looking at it, without that, I've got absolutely no interest in giving you a little lecture or correcting you on how you think about the world. Has no interest in me at all. In fact, I was reading an interesting philosopher I was reading recently who's talking about the necessity of art maintaining privacy, that art isn't about transparency, a certain point. Art is about living with opacity, living with the inability to explain, and that being an entirely virtuous thing that actually gives dignity to the individual. So I think it's an overpowering problem, pressure, particularly on young artists to say something, whereas in fact there is nothing to say.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, getting back to your responsible side, you have held a very responsible post in the world of art. So tell us about that. Was it eight years in post?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yes.

[Charlotte Verity]

So tell us about that. So you're President of the Royal Academy, and how does that come about?

[Christopher Le Brun]

That comes about through a very robust democratic system. But in my case, it was a surprise. I wasn't expecting it to happen until somebody said to me, when the President was stepping down, would you consider standing for it? Christopher and I hadn't really thought about it. You have to put yourself up and be voted for in a secret ballot by about 80 to 100 people.

[Charlotte Verity]

Okay.

[Christopher Le Brun]

And having announced that you're willing to stand, you're all in a room together. And the round after round after round of voting until there's only one person left. So it takes a few hours. Right.

[Charlotte Verity]

How many. How many other people were up for it?

[Christopher Le Brun]

I think there are about. Maybe about eight or ten of us when we started, and they gradually don't get the votes or they agree to drop out because they're not going to get it. It's sort of complicated, but when I said it's robust democracy, it's because every year subsequently, technically, the same thing happens. So they say election of the President, the President leaves the room and there's a secret ballot whether they want them back. So it means if somebody goes rogue or is hopeless, they can be got rid of, but it means all year you've got that democratic possibility there that you could not be elected. Although in practice, people would tend to say, look, I don't think you're going to get the votes and best to step down, by the way. It's not why I stepped down. I Stepped down because I didn't want to do the full 10 years. I think I'd done enough by then, so.

[Charlotte Verity]

And so how do you look back on that, that time? I mean, it's obviously incredible privilege.

[Christopher Le Brun]

That was extraordinary privilege. Extraordinary privilege. And actually, I did enjoy the responsibility because I used to enjoy working with the staff and I loved the idea that it was possible to achieve something together with immense difficulties, because amongst a group of such people, everyone has their own idea. Everyone's used to being in the studio on their own, but we managed to get together and do something.

[Charlotte Verity]

And how challenging was it.

[Christopher Le Brun]

At times? It was madly challenging. It was really, really quite tricky, but I really believed we could do it. And what I'm talking about now is mostly the big master plan, Burlington Gardens raising, I don't know, 60, 70, 80 million pounds, all that sort of thing. But I think there was a sense, I was convinced. I didn't blink, Matt, I didn't blink. And we had wonderful help from people. And also, I think there was another important sense, which was that the Royal Academy was needed. There was a danger when the arts are all publicly funded, that everything starts moving down the same route, that the museums tend to come to some consensus, whereas the Royal Academy, being entirely free of government central funding, was free to have its own take on things. And I absolutely believe it's amazingly important. And there are enough people out there who believe something similar to support the Royal Academy in that, to make sure there wasn't just one dominant institution in the arts in this country, but there were several. So the different. Different voices.

[Charlotte Verity]

So getting back now to this home that we're in now we're in Somerset, which is quite different to Camberwell.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Quieter, quieter, definitely.

[Charlotte Verity]

You could hear a pin drop outside. Why here? Why this area?

[Christopher Le Brun]

I had a studio in Somerset years ago and it was so that I could get away from the family for, say, a few days and just concentrate on my work and then go back and, well, Charlotte so grateful for her looking after the job. Well, I did that. But it was important for me to get. To get on with the work at certain occasions. But it turned into a second home, and that wasn't the point. And the problem with it as a second home was that I had a studio about 60ft long and the children in Charlotte had a room about 12 foot six. And so I was massively indulgent in my studio space. But the family were all living in a tiny, cramped bit on the end, kitchen tucked around the back in a couple of rooms. So we took A bit off the studio when I did it, and then it. It was becoming a second home, so I sold it and bought my studio in London. But it meant that we had very good feelings and memories about Somerset.

[Charlotte Verity]

Okay.

[Christopher Le Brun]

So we. We felt what it's like. And also in my background, my family come from the New Forest and Dorset and Hampshire and Leamington and all around there. So going west felt much more comfortable for me than going east.

[Charlotte Verity]

So this house is what, a Georgian farmhouse?

[Christopher Le Brun]

The old bit goes back to mid 16th century. That's the kitchen and the fireplace and all of that. And there was a barn on the end of it and a small dairy building. And then this bit was built. Anything from the mid 18th century on, I mean, broadly Georgian, and it's just one room thick, but it has this very handsome facade which we absolutely loved and which rather reminded us of Love Walk. It's as if Love Walk has been transported and put in the country here. And it's in its. In its own valley.

[Charlotte Verity]

Very much so, yes. It's symmetrical again, isn't it?

[Christopher Le Brun]

It's symmetrical. Although the stone mason came and looked at it and he was looking at the facade for the stone and I was waiting and hoping he'd say something complimentary. He said, faint shade of the workhouse. I think I know what he means. It's plain. But I hadn't thought about it like that before.

[Charlotte Verity]

So you're very sweetly. Because we had a phone conversation, didn't we, the other day, just deciding what we're going to do today. And you said, look, it's not finished. The house is not finished. Just to let you know, we've only been here two years, we haven't tackled it yet. And in the background, Charlotte said, it's not even started. And I love that, I love that. But what sort of plans have you got for this place? Because you've whitewashed it, haven't you, and stripped the carpets out.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yes, yes.

[Charlotte Verity]

You know, sort of taken it back to its bones. And what's gonna happen next?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Well, there are some odd things here. Where the barn used to be means that there's a run of rooms which are in sequence, and it means you can only get to them from one staircase at one end. And then you have to go through one bedroom and then past another room, another, to get to the last one. So we need to put a staircase in to get access to the back. And every window in the house has to be replaced, like every window, the roof is held together with sticky and nothing else. And it just Needs attention. It just needs attention. I think previously all the imagination went into the outbuildings for what was here before, and the house was due to be looked at, but they didn't get around to it. So I think that's.

[Charlotte Verity]

Were you quite attracted by the idea of obviously of sort of rescuing it in a way, or was it more about the fact that you could both have studios on this site? What was the main driver for this particular house?

[Christopher Le Brun]

I don't think we were thinking about rescuing. We're thinking about, if anything, rescuing ourselves, because we needed two studios within walking distance of the house. And what was unique about this, that the planning permission already existed. You see, because the houses we've been looking at in other places, you really would be speculating on whether you'd get planning permission, whereas here that wasn't the case. And it meant that almost immediately we could turn one building into Charlotte Studio and then the threshing barn, which has just been completed, into mine. And so there was a deliverable sequence of things. And now we're just addressing this.

[Charlotte Verity]

So, yeah, because you started off with the studios, didn't you? That was the most important thing. Get that sorted.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yes.

[Charlotte Verity]

So tell us about your studio in the threshing barn. Has that affected your work at all? How do you find working in there?

[Christopher Le Brun]

It's a bit too early to say, because I've only been working there for about a couple of months, but I think it's going to affect it because of continuity. The trouble with having a distant studio is that you have to stop at a certain time, go home. Well, that's obvious, but that tends to break the rhythm of your thought. Whereas here, potentially, if I feel that there's something, I've struck gold, as it were, I can keep going. I can keep going. And we've even put a little kitchen in down there so I can have something to eat and keep painting.

[Charlotte Verity]

Do you ever sleep down there?

[Christopher Le Brun]

No. I used to sleep in the one and the other one. But you see occasionally that frame of mind where you get into a sequence where you need to keep the thing going is important. And through my middle years, I didn't allow myself to paint at night because I want to be with family. And a lot of artists do get into a pattern and one's imagination does tend to wake up at night, so it's very seductive. But at least here I think I've got all the options and in the next 10 years, I've got to be as productive as I can be. And I think we both agree on.

[Charlotte Verity]

That, I believe I'm right in saying that you get more productive and creative later in the day. Is that right? Is there a sort of warming up period that goes on?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yes, it's the most infuriating thing. It's the most absolute infuriating thing. I go in the studio all bright, bushy tailed, ready to go. And will it work? No, I'm doing stuff, I'm looking busy, but it's not really what I want. So I have to paint in the morning, I have to paint in the. Through the afternoon. By the time I'm getting tired, towards the end of the afternoon, the bit that I want, the part of my imagination interests me, starts to come alive. And the tireder I am and the hungrier I am, the more it comes alive. It's just maddening. It's just maddening. And it's always been like that. I could change my life and work all night and sleep all day, but for the reasons that we've all been talking about it, it's not, it's not a good idea.

[Charlotte Verity]

And do you listen to music?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yeah, I listen to music. I start off in the morning or bright, listening to classical music. As the day goes on, it gets funkier and funkier and funkier and the painting gets probably better and better. I don't know, but I don't know. It's odd, isn't it? So I'm painting, I'm painting to my. The best music produces the worst painting, and the worst music produces the best painting.

[Charlotte Verity]

Come on. So what's bad music? That's gone. Let's tell us. How bad are we getting?

[Christopher Le Brun]

I'd have to kill everybody in the room if I told you and that would spoil the podcast. But it's to do with rhythm. It's to do with rhythm, actually, because the beat of classical music is, as it were, upright and steady and complicated, but. But jazz, really, it's jazz and things like that. And anything with a steady rhythm or the syncopated rhythm somehow just enables me instead of thinking, what am I doing to do it?

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah.

[Christopher Le Brun]

And it also helps with color because the standing on the edge of the pool, shivering in one's bathers is what it feels like most of the time. But suddenly with the music and the rhythm you're in now, it's got to be that red. It's got to be that green. Oh, it's that blue. Surely it's that blue. And just do it, just do it. I'm in the pool, okay, in the pool. And the trouble is a Lot of. A lot of the one's responses are these weird physical responses to the idea of color. The idea of color is a physical response. It's more physical than mental, if. If that makes sense. And you feel it in your hands and you feel the impulses to do something or make a mark. My pennies are quite big, so the physical aspect of what I do is crucial. So I think that may explain the annoyingly specific recipe for getting my work towards the end of the day.

[Charlotte Verity]

Has your approach to color changed as you've got older? Because the way that you perceive color as it changes, doesn't physically.

[Christopher Le Brun]

I think when I was younger, I was so technically aware of tone and hue and pigment and all those things. It's like trying to learn to drive a really, really complicated car. So when you're learning, your eyes are everywhere. The dashboard, that indicates signal, mirror, all this stuff. And then a certain point, the mirror signal, indicate. I've got that all wrong. Please don't repeat this.

[Charlotte Verity]

I'm not getting good.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Don't. I don't. You wouldn't want to. And. But now I. I'm just driving. I'm just driving. And so questions of destination and all this, all gone. I'm. I'm going to stop this metaphor soon. Don't worry. But the spontaneity of my response to color is probably greater now than it was when I was younger. And I know much, frankly, I know much more about it and about how the pigments behave and what will work.

[Charlotte Verity]

So lots of people listening to this will be in the creative industry. Some will be artists, others won't have any particular direct experience of that. How would you describe to someone. This is quite simplistic, but how would you describe someone that move from something figurative, something realistic to your work now, which is very abstracted, you know, how does that come about? And what was that process for you ending up where you are now?

[Christopher Le Brun]

That is a really complicated question. I'm going to try and I'm going to try and answer it developmentally, that, gosh, that sounds pretentious. But what I mean is this. I know I've mentioned this several times. I'm very aware of it. In this house, the grandchildren, when they come and stay. So now I'm watching them draw for the first time, and I'm watching them with more. I'm noticing more things I did when I was the parent. So I see the development from only being able to see something in front of their face, their mother's face, to seeing something in the room to Take an interest in the animals around to then coming to the point at which they start to draw. So I'm seeing this developmental stage happening. And the developmental stage looks as if it's progressing towards identifiable things. People start to have eyes, a mouth, ears, trees have leaves, and that's keeping going like that. I'm in reverse. My developmental stages are falling off the tree one by one. So the point at which I was learning about figurative art and representative art, that was why I hadn't. I. I got some praise from my parents because I could depict things. And that carried on. And I learned all about life, drawing and so on. And working from observation at the Slade for many years. And my work of the 1980s was essentially like. This painting here had figurative elements in it. But I still feel the main drive of the work isn't necessarily resemblance. It's feeling. Now, resemblance does obviously, gives you feeling according to what you recognize. But a lot of the painting is rather like an iceberg. You see the top of the iceberg, but the bulk of the iceberg you're not picking up consciously. The form, the texture, the scale, the layers, the extent, the general rhythm of it. These are all things that inform you, but they're not necessarily to do with resemblance. Now, although Rembrandt puts them all together in the great Self Portrait, it's also possible for you to, as it were, strip them out in a great Jackson Pollock or something with its rhythm which reminds you of powerfully of nature. What it feels like to be in nature. And to be in nature isn't necessarily a thing of resemblance. If we were to go and walk through the woods up there. The complicated perceptions of us walking through that space can hardly be depicted, but it is a reality. And also, you're affected physically by color. You're affected emotionally. If you're very lucky, you can be very moved by color. Not everybody has that capacity. It's not distributed evenly. Some people have it, some people don't. Other people are moved by the word. So I know this is immensely long answer to your question, but it's an immensely complicated, subtle issue. But resemblance is a very powerful tool should you require it. And it may be within five years, I'll come to that again. It could well be. Things tend to cycle. I've. I've. I'm reliving in the work that you've seen today. Work I was doing in the 1970s.

[Charlotte Verity]

All right.

[Christopher Le Brun]

It's like. It's like unfinished business that's come back. That's so interesting that I wanted to Resolve in a more extensive way.

[Charlotte Verity]

So if. If I asked you to look at one of those big canvases in your studio at the moment, could you liken it to anything that you've seen?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Well, you notice one painting on the end which has an image of the moon at the top. So there we are. QED and there have been some big paintings we made recently called Phases of the Moon, which is an image I came from, one of my very first oil paintings. And I can remember to this moment the physical feeling of painting the little pale moon on the canvas popping its reflections below it. Now, I don't know what that is, but for me it's completely compelling. Outside of saying anything, you see, a compulsion of interest or curiosity is just as important as a compulsion of significance or meaning. So there's something I've done described that's one feature of the painting. But of course, there are many other things.

[Charlotte Verity]

But in most cases, they are. You can't see a moon. They are just what looks like brush strokes. Is there something of nature in there? I mean, I know it's difficult question to answer, but is that like, just. Do people look at it and go, oh, that's a. That's a thing. That reminds me of that landscape.

[Christopher Le Brun]

People tend to do it when you don't want them to.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah.

[Christopher Le Brun]

This big painting in two big paintings in Liverpool, behind the choir stalls in Liverpool Anglican Cathedral. And I was talking about how they were made, and there was a man at the front, and he said, can I just ask you something? So, yeah, of course. He said, you know there's a face in that tree, don't you? I said, what? He said, look. Look at the trunk of that tree. Can you see that face? I said, no. He said, there is a face. And he turned to his other. He turned to his friends, he said, can you see it? And they all said, yes.

[Charlotte Verity]

But you couldn't. No.

[Christopher Le Brun]

I said, it's not there. I felt a terrible spoil sport, but it really wasn't there. But actually. But the positive side of it is it's part of the function of painting to always look like things. That's what we do. The human mind applies more imagination to what it sees than the checking of facts. We fill things out. I'm looking at you now. My imagination tells me what's behind me.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Christopher Le Brun]

So on the same visit, someone said about the painting, he said, is that a Good Samaritan? I said, yeah. He said, you know, that should be a donkey. I said, what? He said, it should be a donkey. I said, what do you mean it should be a donkey? He said. He said that the Bible describes it as a beast. Well, it was a horse. Anyway, we had a bit of an argument. I love my interactions. I must get out more.

[Charlotte Verity]

Nice to get feedback from the customer. So I think the last thing I wanted to ask you really was just about looking back over an incredibly successful career, but also life. You and Charlotte have raised, I'm sure, some wonderful children. You've had some amazing homes that we've discussed today. So many facets to a life. What do you think is going to give you the most satisfaction when you look back over it all? If you could pick something, what would it come down to?

[Christopher Le Brun]

Oh, crikey. You've saved this, haven't you? Yeah. Yeah.

[Charlotte Verity]

It's not a.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Did you always plan to ask this one? Oh, crikey. Much satisfaction. I suppose the really tough artists, the really tough, you know, the Dickens and the Tolstoys of this world would say it's the art, but I'm conflicted because it's family, too. Has to be the answer.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yeah.

[Christopher Le Brun]

So coming back to the house, the house was designed for us to work, but also as a family house. So, you see, I'm resolving this question with an answer which doesn't really. Isn't really an answer, but it's a response.

[Charlotte Verity]

It is both, though.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yeah, it is. It has to be. It has to be both.

[Charlotte Verity]

It is both, but you know what I mean. So my father, who died at age 73, 74, something like that, don't worry me, Matt.

[Christopher Le Brun]

I'm 72.

[Charlotte Verity]

I'm sorry.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Phew. Sorry.

[Charlotte Verity]

You were a lot fitter than he was. I have to tell you that.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Can I have a glass of water?

[Charlotte Verity]

I have to tell you that. But I did look at him in the last week of his life, and I spoke to him and I said to him, look, your legacy is your sons. It's your family. That, in the end, is what you leave behind.

[Christopher Le Brun]

Yes.

[Charlotte Verity]

Yes. And actually, a lot of us, in a way, are not fortunate enough that we also get to leave a really profound body of work. Like you have, like a physical object in the world that other people can enjoy, that you've created. So that's incredible.

[Christopher Le Brun]

I'm glad you said that. I'm a little less conflicted now. Can I have the family? It's all yours, Christopher.

[Charlotte Verity]

Thanks so much. I've really enjoyed that. Thank you. And thank you for having us here.

[Christopher Le Brun]

No, great pleasure. Thank you.

[Matt Gibbard]

Thanks so much for listening, as always. We really appreciate you being here. If you're enjoying this podcast, you might also like our film series, which is also titled Homing In. Imaginatively. You can find it on YouTube, the ModernHouseFilms, or just search for the Modern House and it should come up that way. Our latest film is a house tour tour with the writer and director Reggie Yates, who we interviewed on this podcast many years ago now, but is a great character and I think that's well worth a look. So do check that out. You can follow us as always on Instagram hemodernhouse or my personal account, Matt Gibbard. If you're on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and can spare a moment to leave us a quick review that will be much appreciated. This episode was produced by L. Connick Collective with music by Simeon Walker. Thanks very much everyone and talk to you on the next one. Bye for now.