Fanny Brennan 1921 - 2001
Fanny Brennan was born in 1921 in Paris, France to Richard and Alice Lee Myers, who were part of an expatriate art community in Paris. She grew up surrounded by the the artists and writers who considered themselves part of Sara and Gerald Murphy's circle of friends. Brennan was educated in Europe and the United States, and enrolled in art school in Paris in 1938, where she met Tristan Tzara, had her portrait painted by Giacometti and taught Picasso himself how to play Chinese checkers.
At the beginning of the war, Brennan went to New York and got a job with Harper's Bazaar and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She was then hired by the Office of War Information, in 1944, to work in Europe. Most of Brennan's works were done in small scale, only three to four inches in diameter. Aftr the birth of her children, Brennan stopped painting for nearly twenty years, but began again in 1970, painting domestic objects with a playful eye.
In 1941, she was a part of two shows at the Wakefield Bookshop Gallery in Manhatten. In 1973, she beagan the first of three solo shows with Parsons and several more with the Coe Kerr Gallery. In1990, a book entitled "Skyshades" was produced, including photos of her work and an introduction by Calvin Tomkins.
Fanny Brennan died on July 22, 2001 at the age of 80.