Chuck Connelly: My America

As a prodigious painter with a passion for his craft, Connelly has amassed a vast body of work dating from the late 1970’s to the present day. His subjects have varied widely from religious imagery to cosmic visions, landscapes, portraits, domestic interiors, and Victorian homes from his neighborhood in East Oak Lane, Philadelphia. In spite of such a varied career, Connelly’s penchant for the surreal and fantastic have remained constant.

This exhibition, Chuck Connelly: My America, will mark Connelly’s first solo museum show and feature works from his beginning years in New York to the present day. Born in Pittsburgh in 1955, Connelly graduated from the Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia in 1977. In the early 1980s Connelly, based in New York City, exhibited widely and developed a highly inventive style of expressionist painting. During this period, Connelly was recognized as a key figure among the New York-based Neo-expressionist painters – alongside artists such Julian Schnabel and Jean-Michel Basquiat – and was collected by major institutions across the United States. In the late 1990s, Connelly returned to Philadelphia where he continues to live and work.

The Pittsburgh Biennial is co-organized by Carnegie Museum of Art, Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University, The Andy Warhol Museum, SPACE Gallery, Pittsburgh Glass Center, Mattress Factory, and Biennial founders Pittsburgh Filmmakers and Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Each of the eight partnering institutions presents a distinct exhibition of work by artists connected to the Pittsburgh region, reflecting each organization’s curatorial focus.

Support for the Pittsburgh Biennial has been provided by The Fine Foundation; Hillman Family Foundations; the James L. Baker Memorial Fund, the Hollen Bolmgren Fund, and the W. Alfred Turner Memorial Fund of The Pittsburgh Foundation; Richard King Mellon Foundation; Highmark; and an anonymous donor.