Brian Connelly (Roseburg, Oregon, 1926 – Connecticut, August 13, 1963) was an American painter, illustrator, and textile designer, known for his mastery of trompe-l'œil and his 15th-century Flemish painting and glazing techniques. His paintings combine elements of surrealism in a style called magical realism.
Biography
Early life and education
Connelly was born in 1926 to a middle class family in Roseburg, Oregon.
Although considered self-taught, he began his studies in painting at the University of Oregon. In 1946 he moved to New York where he studied briefly at the Art Students League of New York, an institution that focused on academic craftsmanship and also produced many of the leading magical realists of the day. He then moved to Parsons School of Design in New York.The Unforgettables Expanding the History of American Art, 2022, Charles C. Eldredge, p. 301-306, accessed 15 June 2025
He studied the methods of 15th-century painters and traveled abroad before settling in Connecticut.Trompe l'oeil: The Art of Deception, 1997, by Nancy H. Dawson, accessed 11 June 2025 Between 1949 and 1951 he traveled to Europe and discovered, among other things, the Flemish Renaissance painters. In 1952-1953 Connelly then made a world trip. For a year and a half, he also served in the United States Navy.Reality and Fantasy, 1900-1954, Catalog of the Exhibition May 23 Through July 2, 1954, by Walker Art Center, 1954, accessed on June 17, 2025
Thanks to his commercial illustrations for advertising campaigns and his career as a portrait painter, Connelly built up a network in the art world of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. In the late 1940s, Connelly became involved with Associated American Artists (AAA), a gallery and organization founded in 1934 by Reeves Lewenthal. The gallery played a major role in the growth of the art industry by connecting American artists and their work with the public to make art more accessible. In addition to Connelly, AAA also represented painters such as Grant Wood.
Style and techniques
Connelly's painting style has been called "magical realism". The term was popularized in 1943 during the exhibition "American Realists and Magic Realists" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.Extra Ordinary: Magic, Mystery and Imagination in American Realism, Georgia Museum, accessed June 17, 2025
Connelly's style is often compared to surrealism, but while surrealism focuses on the life of the mind, Connelly's magic realism is rooted in the real world and depicts fantastical elements as part of everyday life. The mystical, sometimes humorous, elements in his works add to their mystery and invite the viewer to look closer. Throughout his career, Connelly explored the surrealist tradition with an added layer of technical precision that placed him in the same league as earlier American artists in the genre, such as Paul Cadmus (1904–1999) and Peter Blume (1906–1992). Magic Realism, An American Response to Surrealism : June 12-September 6, 1999, by Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, accessed June 22, 2025
Connelly was a technical virtuoso in tempera-illusionist painting, showing meticulous detail in his rendering of objects. He was highly regarded for his attention to detail and the way he played with perception, blurring the lines between reality and illusion. His works often featured hyperrealistic representations, inviting the viewer to reconsider the nature of what they saw. Connelly viewed the everyday through a hyperrealistic and often mysterious lens.The Unforgettables Expanding the History of American Art 2022, p.305, accessed June 22, 2025
He always signed his works BRIAN in block letters and indicated on his works the year of creation in Roman numerals.
Works
Connelly experimented with painting, drawing, and textile art. He painted primarily in oil paint, tempera, and casein paint with oil glaze, on panel and masonite. Some of his works were executed on paper or canvas. He also made a number of watercolors. His oeuvre includes imaginative, illusionistic landscapes, works featuring Tiffany glass, Trompe-l'oeil still lifes of, among other things, sunflowers and various types of fruit, as well as portraits of friends. Connelly was a passionate gardener and grew exotic plants as a hobby. He let the plants play a role in some of his paintings. Connelly stated that if you can paint one leaf, you can paint the world.
Connely's works can be found in the collections of many American museums such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York, and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York.
Commercial Commissions
In the period 1952–1954, Connelly gained wider recognition as a commercial illustrator. In the early 1950s, he was commissioned by Associated American Artists (AAA) to paint advertisements for De Beers Diamonds, one of the largest diamond producers in the world. These advertisements introduced the paintings Wedding Day (1952), Day to Remember (1952), Memory of Love (1953), Lifetime of Love (1953), Garden of Dreams (1953), and Song of Love (1954) to a wider audience.LIFE Magazine, July 6, 1953, Vol. 35, No. 1, Connelly's Garden of Dreams, p.73, accessed June 14, 2025Advertisement for DeBeers featuring Brian Connelly's Memory of Love, Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, accessed June 17, 2025
His illustrations earned him an award from the Art Directors Club of New York. This commercial success also resulted in commissions from Fortune, interior and garden magazines (such as House Beautiful and House and Garden), and the Bromeliad Society Bulletin, a journal about botanical plants. In August 1952, Connelly made the front cover of the special edition "Canada, the Businessman's Country" of Fortune. The painting was a realistic depiction of a maple leaf. Since the Fortune issue was about Canada, Connelly chose a maple leaf, the national symbol of Canada, as his subject.Fortune Magazine, Friday, January 15, 2021 Fortune, August 1952, Brian Connely front cover, accessed June 16, 2025.
Illusionistic works
The core of his oeuvre concerns his illusionistic and tromp l'oeil paintings. His best-known works include: Tiffany Landscape (1950), Attraction (1951), Spectrum (1952), Golf Magic (1953), A Night Garden (1956) and The Gates of Paradise (1960).
Tiffany Landscape (1950)
Connelly was a great collector of Tiffany Glass. The transparent and reflective properties of the glass intrigued the painter. Tiffany glass was also a source of inspiration for certain paintings by Connelly, such as the painting Tiffany Landscape from 1950, in which he depicted a park in which classic trees alternate with Tiffany lamps, such as a 'Wisteria' Table Lamp (with blue and green leaves), the Magnolia Tiffany floor lamp and a peony Tiffany pendant lamp (with red, orange, yellow and green tones), which take the form of trees.Tiffany Landscape (1950), mutualart.com, accessed on 17 June 2025Tiffany Favrile Glass, A Collection formed by James Coats and the Late Brian Connelly of New York, accessed 17 June 2025
Attraction (1950)
A modest revival of trompe l'oeil painting occurred in the early 1950s. In addition to Peter Blume's Crucifixion, Brian Connelly attracted attention with his work Attraction from 1950. This dark trompe l'oeil painting shows a broken window with wormholes and all kinds of insects, including flies and butterflies. This work on panel, with oil paint and tempera, belongs to the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Attraction was included in several exhibitions at the Art Institute (1951 and 1959-1960) and was also shown in Springfield Illinois (1953), the Dallas Museum of Art (1953), the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (1954), and Lake Forest College in Illinois (1957)."Attraction", 1950, Art Institute of Chicago, artic.edu, accessed 17 June 2025
Spectrum (1952)
In 1952, Connelly became the youngest artist to win the Audience Award at the Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting for the painting "Spectrum".Pictures on Exhibit, Volume 15, 1952, Pictures Publishing Company, accessed June 17, 2025 This four-part, sixteen-panel painting of a Renaissancehospice in Bonn, Germany, unfolds to show the same scene in four different color palettes, as if evoking changing daylight or seasons: a yellow spring, the red-orange heat of summer, the cool blue of autumn, and a gray winterdawn.
With Spectrum, Connelly captured the cracks in everyday reality, where the ordinary, if only for a moment, is transformed into something extraordinary, too fantastic to be real. At the same time, Connelly attempted to synthesize historical artistic principles with the concerns of avant-garde modernism. This kinetic polyptych, with its patented hinged panels, explores color and human vision, much like the color field paintings of Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko, which also emerged in the same years. The work is part of the collection of the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art in Loretto, Pennsylvania.
Golf Magic (1953)
Commissioned by the Associated American Artists (AAA) gallery, Connelly designed several textile artworks in the early 1950s: the kitchen apron "Golf Magic" and "Marbles." Grant Wood and Anton Refregier were other painters whose designs were used.
In 1952, AAA entered into joint ventures with textile and ceramic manufacturers to create "modern" household items. Between 1952 and 1957, AAA expanded their merchandising theories to include designing fabrics for both the clothing and home furnishings markets. These fabrics, most of which were signed and dated, were praised upon their introduction in newspaper articles and clothing magazines—both for the general public and for the trade.The Associated American Artists: Textile Art for the Masses The Associated American Artists: Textile Art for the Masses, 2002, Karen Herbaugh Oregon State University, accessed June 17, 2025 Golf Magic was designed by Connelly in 1953 for the "Signature Fabrics" collection of AAA, which produced the screen-printed textiles. It was worn by Jerry Stiller as Wilbur Turnblad in the original John Waters film 'Hairspray' (1988).
The "trompe-l'oeil" design of Golf Magic featured a motif of realistically depicted golf balls with sharp shadows on a bright yellow background. A variation with a bright red background also appeared in 1953.Cora Ginsburg LLC, A Catalogue of 20th & 21st century costume & textiles 2017, p.9/17, Brian Connelly's Golf Magic, 1953 With the graphic motif of the same golf ball, seemingly repeated endlessly, Connelly referenced ideas about mass production, consumerism, and popular culture. "Golf Magic" evoked the key features of pop art.Featured Object: Golf Magic, accessed June 17, 2025
Connely's "Golf Magic" helped to represent the beginning of pop art in America, the American obsession with pop culture that began in the 1950s, and also American magical realism. The textile was not only a designed art object, but also a consumer good. Moreover, the medium, screen printing, was a printing method that allowed for rapid reproduction, which allowed for a large print run of the product. The production of the object was based on the premise that the artwork should be available to the general public. American magical realism, on the other hand, is described as a reaction to European surrealism, in which subjects are depicted realistically but also imaginatively.
In the case of Golf Magic, the eye cannot distinguish whether the golf ball is lying on the yellow background, casting a shadow, or whether it is floating above it. This sensation creates the optical illusion that the ball is constantly moving. Also significant is the title Connelly gave to the object, "Golf Magic", which was not only self-referential, but also alluded to the "Magic Realism" movement.Golf Magic. Designed by Brian Connelly, produced by Associated American Artists. ca. 1953, cooperhewitt.org, accessed 17 June 2025