The Book, Cat, & Cat Book Lovers Almanac

of historical trivia regarding books, cats, and other animals. Actually this blog has evolved so that it is described better as a blog about cats in history and culture. And we take as a theme the advice of Aldous Huxley: If you want to be a writer, get some cats. Don't forget to see the archived articles linked at the bottom of the page.

January 7, 2016

January 7, 1955

Chuck Connelly (January 7, 1955) painted this big canvas, titled it "Animals on the Street" and rejected a 70,000 dollar offer for it, because he knows his work is worth much more.




A reason Chuck Connelly knew some values for his work is because in the 1980s his art was bringing colossal amounts. What happened to alter that is a story I have tried, and failed, to really understand.. The outline is that after Martin Scorecese used Connelly as the subject of his movie "Life Lessons," (part of a trilogy of narrativess presented as New York Stories) Connelly publicly criticized the movie as "cliched." And then the art world shunned the artist. That is the official line, and it makes no sense.


Connelly is a major artist. Here is some background on his life and work:


Back in the ’80s, he strode the art scene like a colossus alongside Jeff Koons, Julian Schnabel and Jean-Michel Basquiat, his paintings commanding hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But drinking, temper and tactlessness took their toll. For the past 16 years he’s lived a hermitlike existence in North Philadelphia, two hours from New York but light-years from his starry past....


[Connelly's] ... paintings .... seem... lit from within. There’s such a wide range of styles in his work — neo-expressionist, fantasy, photorealist — it’s hard to believe they were painted by the same person, let alone one using a garbage-can lid for a palette....

Connelly is ...
[not] impressed by his contemporaries.

“I think anyone who’s doing well has probably sold out,” he says, lighting one of his 60 or so cigarettes of the day. Koons is “more of a politician” than an artist, he says, mimicking him: “‘Yes, I have 123 assistants, but they’re all like fingers on my hand.’” Connelly snorts. “You have a deformed hand!”...

Three years out of Philly’s Tyler School of Art, he came to the East Village, painting Buddha heads for $4 an hour and working other “stupid” jobs until diet guru Robert Atkins became his patron. For a dozen paintings a year, Connelly says, the doctor paid him $600 a month: “That was my Atkins Diet!”....

By the 1980s, his paintings were selling strong. Martin Scorsese admired them, and featured Connelly’s art and ferocious attitude — even Connelly’s hand, wielding the paintbrush — in “Life Lessons” .....

Just as in the film version of his life, he and his girlfriend... broke up. For the next 10 years, Connelly watched his sales slow and his rent rise. In 1999, he and his then-wife moved to Philly.....

Chuck Connelly never stopped painting.  These quotes above are from a New York Post recent article. There is a lovely slide show of the art there, and you will see more cats. 

No comments: