Colleen Browning (16 May 1918 – 22 August 2003) was an Anglo-American realist and magical realist painter.

Early life

Colleen Browning was born 16 May 1918 in Shoeburyness, Essex, England. As a child, Browning was a gifted artist. Her parents supported and encouraged her by enrolling her in the Farnham School of Arts in 1933. In 1942, she worked as a mapmaker for the Royal Air Force during World War II. They quickly decided to marry in America, where Wagner had been hired to teach at the University of Rochester. she and Mr. Wagner lived on 116th Street and Second Avenue. It was there that she painted “Holiday,” looking down from her fourth-floor window, and “East Harlem Street Scene,” depicting the bustle of her neighborhood. In “Fire Escape II,” she arranged four children on the vertical structure of a fire escape Browning became an American citizen a year later. The artist lived in New York City for the next five decades. Browning was a major figure in the realism (arts) movement in New York City during a time when Abstract Realism and the art of Jackson Pollock was beginning to rise to prominence. In particular, Browning often painted New York City and scenes of urban life. In works such as Picture of a Painting of the Great Circus Parade (1988) and Black Umbrella (1970) the artist captures a real event but with a focus on the wonderful and a blurred sense of reality. Like many professional artists, Browning supplemented her income through commercial illustration and printmaking. This phase of her career is highlighted in SAMA-Johnstown's exhibition.

Browning died in New York City on 22 August 2003. A Brush with Magic had already appeared in Ireland and New York City with dates in Connecticut, Ohio and Texas still to come. Her work has also been featured in articles in Time, Newsweek, Glamour, the New York Times, Arts Magazine, Art International, and American Artist.

Browning's brand of figurative painting, with subjects ranging from worshipers in a Guatemalan church to graffiti-covered Harlem subway cars to the still life Fruits and Friends (1978, Harmon-Meek Galleries, Naples, Fl.), displays affinities with both the SOCIAL REALISM of Jack Levine and the MAGIC REALISM of Philip Evergood and George Tooker. Nevertheless, Browning developed and maintains a wry, multi-hued personal stamp to her painting.

Collections

  • Detroit Institute of Arts
  • Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
  • The Milwaukee Art Center
  • The Seattle Art Museum
  • The St. Louis Art Museum
  • The New York State Art Museum
  • The National Museum of Women in the Arts
  • Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art