Fanny Brennan

Fanny Brennan (1921–2001) was a French-American surrealist painter. She was born in Paris, and educated in the United States and Europe, enrolling in art school in France in 1938. When war began, she went to New York. In 1941 the Wakefield Bookshop gallery run by Betty Parsons included her in two shows. She also worked for Harpers Bazaar and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1944, the Office of War Information hired her to work in Europe. For almost twenty years after the births of her children she ceased painting, not beginning again until 1970. Starting in 1973, she had three solo exhibitions with Betty Parsons, and then some with Coe Kerr Gallery. A book of her work, called Skyshades, was published in 1990, and had an introduction by Calvin Tomkins. Her paintings were typically three or four inches across, and frequently combined domestic objects such as buttons with landscapes. Her portrait was drawn by Alberto Giacometti, and she met Pablo Picasso and Tristan Tzara during her life.