Louis Briel
A Native Virginian, Louis Briel has achieved international recognition as an American portraitist. Schooled in the Classics, he refined his painting style while earning degrees from Hampden-Sydney College as first-honor graduate and Harvard University as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. His art training includes a certificate from the American Academy in Rome and study in Boston with Ann Tabachnick and Morton Sacks.
Portraiture has always been Louis Briel's primary focus. His style owes a debt to Renaissance portraits by Raphael, Holbein and Bronzino and to the linearity of Ingres. During the 1970s, his work became marked by flat color fields and highly silhouetted figures, reflecting influences from illustration, serigraphy, and his admiration for the paintings of David Hockney. Briel has participated in many group shows and has had four one-man exhibits, including major exhibitions at Caravan House Galleries in New York City and the Martin Agency in Richmond. His paintings of prominent families and leaders in the fields of government, business, religion, education and the arts hang in numerous private and public collections.
The Smithsonian Institution In 1993 acquired Briel's portrait of tennis great Arthur Ashe for the National Portrait Gallery. In 1995 the U. S. House of Representatives added his portrait of Rep. Thomas J. Bliley, Chairman of the Commerce Committee, to its Collection. Briel's haunting portrait of Princess Diana accompanied Elton John on his 1997-98 World Tour and is now part of the singer's personal collection. It is featured in the book, "Diana in Art" (Chaucer Press 2007). More recently, Briel has worked with Carol Burnett on a posthumous portrait of her daughter Carrie Hamilton, which hangs in the newly renamed Carrie Hamilton Theatre at the Pasadena Playhouse.
After a nine-year residency in Los Angeles, painting and writing, Briel returned to Richmond in 2007. He chose a downtown studio at Emrick Flats in Jackson Ward. Briel mounted a 50-year retrospective show of his work at Glave-Kocen Gallery in Richmond in February 2011.
Briel is now spending summer and winter at a new studio in Los Angeles and continues to accept portrait commissions both in LA and Richmond.
He has published two novels, Braided Shame, a mystery novel (2008) and Sunset and Vine, a thriller (2010). He continues to edit a memoir, Ducknapper, for publication.
