Colleen Browning: The enchantment of Realism

Browning has a distinct brand of figurative painting, with subjects ranging from worshipers in a Guatemalan church to graffiti-covered Harlem subway cars to still life compositions. Her work is largely recognized for its superior command of materials and media and for her unwavering devotion to understanding the human condition. She was a prominent contributor to the realist revival of the 1990s, and she continued to paint until the very last years of her life. In the 1950s, her work was shown at the Edwin Hewitt Gallery in New York, the destination for realist art of the decade, and she won numerous annual exhibition awards, including the Carnegie International. Her work was included in the National Academy of Design's yearly exhibitions, and she exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial exhibitions, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Kennedy Galleries in New York. She was elected a National Academician in 1966 and served as an officer at the Academy. This is the first extensive study of her life and work produced during her 50-year career.