About the Exhibition

Since meeting in 1974 at the Slade School of Fine Art, London, and marrying in 1979, Le Brun and Verity have developed a rich artistic dialogue arising from years of shared experience, yet which is expressed by distinct painterly sensibilities. Le Brun’s work is led by his imagination, revealing a commitment to the essential pleasure of painting for its own sake, its processes and physicality. He is a master of colour and touch. By contrast, Verity’s lucid compositions, born from hours of close observation and intense looking, distil a precise yet capacious vision of the world.

Both artists manifest an exceptional sensitivity to the natural world and its temporal rhythms. In this group of new canvases, Le Brun evokes the changing seasons through subtle shifts in colour and light over time, demonstrated in works such as Small Seasons, Summer (2023) and Phases of the Moon IV (2024). Particularly evident in these paintings is the tension between revealing and covering, a central feature of his work that unites all its phases, both abstract and figurative. Verity’s images of plants and flowers are exactly rendered without fixing their subjects, their observational rigour balanced by delicacy and a sense of openness. Symbolic rather than botanical, paintings such as Glance (2021) or Anemones (2021) preserve an acute sense of the fleeting and fragile. Verity’s watercolour monotypes, similarly, are lyrical but restrained, expressing a deep knowledge of the natural forms she depicts.

Left Hand, Right Hand will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue featuring a new text on the artists’ work by Robin Vousden. The book will also re-issue lyrical and personal essays about each artist written by Edmund de Waal, first published in 2014 and 2016 by Ridinghouse, London.

About the Artists

Christopher Le Brun

Sir Christopher Le Brun (b. 1951, UK) is one of the leading British painters of his generation, celebrated internationally since the 1980s, who makes both figurative and abstract work in painting, sculpture, and print. He was an instrumental public figure in his role as President of the Royal Academy of Arts in London from 2011 to 2019. He was awarded a Knighthood (Knight Bachelor) for services to the Arts in the 2021 New Year Honours. Since 2023, Tate London, the Museum of Contemporary Art & Urban Planning (MoCAUP) Shenzhen and the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford CT have all acquired major works.

Le Brun’s work can be found in further museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Yale Center for British Art, New Haven; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the V&A and British Museum, London; and Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. He is represented by Lisson Gallery worldwide and Albertz Benda, USA.

Charlotte Verity

Charlotte Verity (b.1954, Germany) is a British artist who has honed a lucid and highly specific visual process to attain truth in her work. Close looking is at the heart of her practice. Since graduating from the Slade, she has undertaken residencies including at Towner, Eastbourne; The Garden Museum, London and Flatford, Suffolk. She has been on the faculty of The Royal Drawing School since 2001. A monograph was published by Ridinghouse in 2016, and Echoing Green: The Printed Year was published in 2021 containing over 100 watercolour monotypes made during 2020-21. Work is available from Rowland Gallery and Lyndsey Ingram in London, and Albertz Benda, New York.

Selected group shows include The Hayward Annual, The Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition and The Whitechapel Open, London; The John Moores, Liverpool and Yale Center for British Art, New Haven. In 2024 she has been included in major surveys: The Shape of Things: Still Life in Britain at Pallant House Gallery Chichester, and Contemporary Collecting: from David Hockney to Cornelia Parker, at the British Museum. Her work is in the collections of Arts Council of England; British Museum; Deutsche Bank; Government Art Collection; Garden Museum; MoCA, San Diego; Tate and many others.