MICHAEL BRENNAN 48 SQUARED
MICHAEL BRENNAN 48 SQUARED
MICHAEL BRENNAN
48 SQUARED
MODERNISM INC. | SAN FRANCISCO
Published on the occasion of the exhibition Michael BRENNAN: 48 Squared April 11 – June 8, 2024 MODERNISM INC.
Ellis Street
Francisco, CA 94109
2024
COVER
48
48 inches
2022, oil on canvas, 48
48 inches FOLLOWING
2024, oil on
48
48 inches PAGE 5:
48 inches
724
San
www.modernisminc.com @modernisminc @artistmichaelbrennan Copyright ©
by Modernism Inc. Artwork photography by Henrik Kam Photography Installation photography by Asa Perryman
: GoldenScrooge(Andy Warhol), 2023, oil on canvas,
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INSIDE: Bull’s-Eye(Jasper Johns / George Méliès),
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PAGE: DeadEnd(Thomas Eakins),
canvas,
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Oof(Ed Ruscha / Georges Seurat), 2023, oil on canvas, 48 x
“Art is a level playing field...”
By Jonathon KeatsWalking toward his studio one morning, Michael Brennan was reminded of the painter Thomas Eakins. Although he was nowhere near the Schuylkill River – where Eakins painted his iconic portrait of the rower Max Schmitt in 1871 – Brennan unexpectedly found himself standing astride a shimmering body of water. The previous night, a rainstorm had flooded the empty lot next to his space in San Francisco’s South of Market district. Always attentive to outlandish inspiration, Brennan spent the day painting his own version of Max Schmitt in a Single Scull, featuring the rower surrounded by graffiti and detritus, trapped in an urban cesspool.
Michael Brennan has an eye for absurdity and a hand so adept with a brush that his oil paintings are often initially mistaken for photography, revealing their virtuoso command of impasto only on careful examination. Combined with an encyclopedic command of art history, these talents make the implausible palpable, fulfilling his childhood hero Salvador Dali’s prescription to “make of surrealism something as solid, complete and classic as the works of museums.” Modernism is pleased to present forty-eight of Brennan’s brazenly original art historical pastiches, ranging from his relocation of Eakins to his combination of modern masters with 48Squared .
”A lot of it is subconscious,” Brennan explains. Worlds combine by free association of visual references. Juxtapositions are surprising yet appear inevitable after they’ve been captured on canvas.
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For instance, WomanIIsets an Elvgren girl on the same picture plane as Willem de Kooning’s radical 1950s reinterpretation of femininity. Barbtakes up the same theme in a different way by merging a painting by Kara Walker with a hyperrealistic rendering of Barbie.
Another frequent art historical motif makes an appearance in Gesture , which surrounds one of Auguste Rodin’s famously expressive hands with a plethora of cartoon hand gestures drawn from Preston Blair’s classic How To Draw , a book Brennan found on eBay.
Brennan’s mixture of high and pop culture has important antecedents in Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, as well as Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein, all of whom find their way into his all-consuming compositions. For example, one of Johns’ targets frames the famous scene in Georges Méliès’ Trip to the Moon where the Man in the Moon is shot in the eye with a bullet-shaped rocket. Lichtenstein also makes several appearances; Brennan overlays scenes from San Francisco with his brushstrokes like a postmodern graffiti artist.
Brennan is fearless with his references, gamely taking on the challenge of repainting Monet’s Water Lilies and iconic portraits of Frida Kahlo and Vincent van Gogh. In Obscura , Jan Vermeer’s Girl with a Red Hat is casually set inside a Mondrian grid, evoking their shared interest in the camera obscura and the relationship between optical devices and the gridded picture plane.
Brennan appears to make fun of his own precociousness in Mona Lisa Smile , a portrait of the TV personality Bob Ross painting La Gioconda . But the painting also communicates a deeper conviction. “Art is a level playing field,” he says. “Anyone can paint anything.”
In his own case, painting anything means painting everything, but always with an attitude uniquely his own. “The art world takes itself way too seriously,” he explains. “A lot of artwork is tongue-in-cheek, but people don’t realize it. I just want mine to be a little more obvious.”
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Barb (Kara Walker), 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
8
Gesture (Auguste Rodin / Preston Blair), 2022 oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
10
Giverny (Claude Monet / Francis Bacon), 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
12
Monarch (Frida Kahlo / Diego Rivera), 2022 oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
14
Woman II (Willem de Kooning / Gil Elvgren), 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
16
MugShot (Vincent van Gogh), 2023 oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
18
Obscura (Johannes Vermeer / Piet Mondrian), 2022
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
20
Mona Lisa Smile (Leonardo Da Vinci / Bob Ross), 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
22
Pirate Smile (Eadweard Muybridge / Preston Blair), 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
Ellis Street (Roy Lichtenstein), 2024
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oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
26
Kitchen Sink (Andy Warhol / Mort Drucker), 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Horse of a Different Color (Deborah Butterfield / Mort Drucker), 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
30
TunaFishing (Salvador Dali / Jeff Koons), 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Skull (Pablo Picasso / Salvador Dali), 2023 oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Transparency (Roy Lichtenstein), 2023 oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Action (Jackson Pollock / Thomas Hart Benton), 2022
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
x 48 inches
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TableTop (Still / Miro / Kandinsky / Krasner / Rothko / Pollock / Matisse), 2022
oil on canvas
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GoldenRectangle (Norman Rockwell), 2022
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
48 x 48 inches
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PaintbyNumbers (Andy Warhol / Pieter Claesz), 2023
oil on canvas
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SecondSight (Leonardo da Vinci), 2024
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Incunabula (Lucien Freud / Francis Bacon), 2023 oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Sorolla (Wayne Thiebaud / Joaquin Sorolla), 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Ash Can (Ashcan School / Andy Warhol), 2022
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Lockdown , 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Au Revoir (Rene Magritte), 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Prayer (Albrecht Durer), 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Paddle (Christo / Mort Drucker), 2022
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Anatomical (Leonardo da Vinci / Eadweard Muybridge / Jean-Michel Basquiat), 2022
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Corset (Willem de Kooning / Gil Elvgren), 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Neapolitan (Wayne Thiebaud), 2023 oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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55 Gallon (Christo), 2023 oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Coalesce (Andy Warhol / Keith Haring), 2022 oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Motif (Louise Nevelson), 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
River School (Hudson River School / Frank Stella), 2023
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Hudson
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Headstand (Keith Haring / Damien Hirst), 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Muse (Henri Matisse), 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Descending (Eadweard Muybridge / Marcel Duchamp), 2024
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Bordello (Pablo Picasso / Edgar Degas), 2022
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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RoboCop (Caspar David Friedrich / Mort Drucker), 2023 oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
Proportion (Eadweard Muybridge / Deborah Butterfield), 2023
48 x 48 inches
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oil on canvas
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Dogeared (Julian Schnabel / Preston Blair), 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Knock-Down (George Bellows / Keith Haring), 2024
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
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Lakeside (Ansel Adams / Francis Bacon), 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
90
Pillow (Robert Rauschenberg / Eadweard Muybridge), 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
92
Drag (Andy Warhol / Robert Mapplethorpe), 2021
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
MICHAEL BRENNAN; SELECTED CHRONOLOGY
Born Mill Valley, California, 1953
EDUCATION
19976 University of California, Santa Cruz, BFA
1974-75 University of California, Davis
1973 College of Marin, CA, AA
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024 Modernism Inc., San Francisco
2022 Modernism Inc., 1117 Market Street, San Francisco
2022 Modernism West, San Francisco
2016 White Walls Gallery, San Francisco
2015 White Walls Gallery, San Francisco
2010 Susan Street Fine Art Gallery, Solano Beach, CA
2007 Susan Street Fine Art Gallery, Solano Beach, CA
2006 Susan Street Fine Art Gallery, Solano Beach, CA
2005 K Kimpton Contemporary Art, San Francisco
2004 455 Market Lobby Gallery, San Francisco
Napa Valley Museum, Yountville, CA
Leanne Hull Fine Art, La Jolla, CA
Domaine Chandon, Yountville, CA
2003 K Kimpton Contemporary Art, San Francisco
1998 Bank of America World Headquarters, San Francisco
International Art Exposition, Fort Mason, San Francisco
K Kimpton Contemporary Art, San Francisco
1993 K Kimpton Contemporary Art, San Francisco
1992 Bank of America World Headquarters, San Francisco
1991 Peter Miller Gallery, Chicago, IL
1989 Ivory/Kimpton Gallery, San Francisco
1988 Shaklee Building, San Francisco
1987 Ivory/Kimpton Gallery, San Francisco
1983 Bank of America World Headquarters, San Francisco
1981 Joseph Chowning Gallery, San Francisco
1976 Stevenson College, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2004 Hearts in San Francisco
1999 K Kimpton Contemporary Art, San Francisco
1989 Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, OR
1987 Fingerhut Gallery, Edina, MN
1982 Joseph Chowning Gallery, San Francisco
1977 Airport Competition, San Francisco
1976 College of Marin, Marin, CA
Razor Gallery, New York
1974 Marin Society of Artists, Marin, CA
1973 College of Marin, Marin, CA
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Fred A. Anderson Inc., Minneapolis
Bank of America World Headquarters, San Francisco
Bressie Management Co., San Francisco
Equidon Inc., Irvine, CA
Imperial Capital, New York
Philip Morris Headquarters, New York
Napa Valley Museum, Yountvillle, CA
Security Pacific Bank, Los Angeles
Shaklee Corporations, San Francisco
SELECTED MURAL COMMISSIONS
Brickyard Mall, Chicago, IL
Bruno’s Nightclub, San Francisco
Curio Restaurant, San Francisco
Farallon, San Francisco
Google, San Francisco
Harry’s Bar, San Francisco
Jardiniere, San Francisco
Kensington Park Hotel, San Francisco
Kuletos Restaurant, San Francisco
The Metreon, San Francisco
Mission Cannabis, San Francisco
New Oakland Arena, Oakland, CA
Rex Hotel, San Francisco
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