Pierce Brosnan has received top billing in marquees around the world and his face has been plastered on billboards for decades. But when he went to an art gallery on La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles this month to find his name above the title of a debut exhibition, “So Many Dreams,” yielded something new.
“This is uniquely self-contained,” Brosnan shared THR. “It brings a lot of emotions because I came to LA in 1982 and was very lucky to get a job right away on a TV show (Remington Steele). I started painting in 1987, and the practice has continued ever since.”
An image of Pierce Brosnan’s painting titled “So Many Dreams” that inspired the show’s title. As for the story behind the job, Brosnan credited a difficult phone call he had with “a dear friend and colleague” when they broke up. “I was making a professional transition within the company and I was trying to say, ‘Look, I’m moving on.’
Thanks to the subject
The show, which runs through May 21, features 50 paintings and 100 drawings and even one NFT. (Also on loan is his portrait of Bob Dylan, which sold for $1.4 million at amfAR’s Cannes gala in 2018.) There are self-portraits, in and out of character, one that revisits a 1995 scene Golden EyeBrosnan’s first appearance as James Bond, and another with 2005’s assassin Julian Noble The matador.
“This is about letting go of the work,” Brosnan explained. ‘Otherwise it will be lost or saved. It is in some ways a biography of the people, places and times of my life and hopefully a new beginning.” And he is happy with what hangs on the walls of the gallery. “I feel confidence in the work and a certain sense of satisfaction with this chapter that needs to be let go so I can move on.”
To celebrate the turning of the page, Brosnan, wife Keely Shaye Smith and their sons Dylan and Paris Brosnan welcomed guests to the gallery on May 13 for an opening that also featured Kenny G., Toby Emmerich, Sugar Ray Leonard, Jane Seymour, Rene Russo, Shaun White, Nina Dobrev, Adam Devine and more.
“It’s a love story,” Brosnan concluded of what’s on the walls and his contributions to the art form over the decades he’s applied paint to canvas. “It’s about a man who loves art, loves painting and wanted to be a painter. It is also a love story of my late wife and my wife Keely now 29 years old, and her encouragement and enthusiasm for my artwork and my practice. There are so many dreams, so it seemed an apt title for this first first footstep on stage. It takes some courage to do it, but I feel comforted when I look at the walls that there is an evolution here and something attractive with a style all its own.”
Beau Flynn, Pierce Brosnan and Lawrence Bender.
Alex J. Berliner/ABImages
Dylan Brosnan, Keely Shaye Brosnan and Paris Brosnan.
Alex J. Berliner/ABImages
Adam DeVine, Nina Dobrev, Shaun White and Chloe DeVine.
Alex J. Berliner/ABImages
A version of this story first appeared in the May 17 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.