Fanny Myers Brennan (1921–July 22, 2001) was a French-American surrealist artist and painter.[1][2]
Fanny Brennan | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1921 Paris, France |
| Died | 2001 (aged 79–80) New York City |
| Nationality | French-American |
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | Surrealism |
Brennan was born in Paris, educated in the United States and Europe and enrolled in an art school in France in 1938.[1] When World War II began, Brennan went to New York.[1] In 1941 the Wakefield Bookshop gallery run by Betty Parsons included her in two shows.[1] She also worked for Harper's Bazaar and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[3][1] In 1944, the Office of War Information hired her to work in Europe.[1] For almost twenty years after the birth of her children Brennan ceased painting, not beginning again until 1970.[1] Starting in 1973, she had three solo exhibitions with Parsons, and then some with Coe Kerr Gallery.[1] A book of her work, titled Skyshades: Sixty Small paintings, was published in 1990 with an introduction by Calvin Tomkins.[1][4]
Brennan's paintings are typically in miniature format and frequently combine domestic objects such as buttons with landscapes.[5] The art critic Celia McGee said of her paintings that "Brennan's magic‐realist canvases—in which landscapes are literally put in a nutshell, a feather duster is taken to Mount Fuji, a spool of ribbon unwinds into a road, and scale and gravity are turned on their heads—are never larger than six square inches."[6]
Her portrait was drawn by Alberto Giacometti.[3] She died on July 22, 2001, in New York City.[7]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f g h i Cotter, Holland (2001-07-31). "Fanny Brennan, Surrealist, 80; Lived in Paris". The New York Times.
- ^ "Small World, New York Magazine". 1990-10-15.
- ^ a b "Deaths". Washington Post. Retrieved 21 February 2020.
- ^ Boucher, Anthony; Francis Mccomas, J. (1992). "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction".
- ^ "Newsweek". 1990.
- ^ Miller, Linda Patterson (2010). "Fanny and Honoria Remember: September 1994". The F. Scott Fitzgerald Review. 8: 3–22. doi:10.1111/j.1755-6333.2010.01033.x. S2CID 170508651.
- ^ "Fanny Brennan; French-Born Surrealist Painter". Los Angeles Times. 2001-08-02.
External links
edit- images of Brennan's work on ArtNet
Further reading
edit- Skyshades: Sixty Small Paintings by Fanny Brennan, 1990, Clarkson Potter ISBN 0517576716