| Fanny Brennan, an American painter of small, meticulously executed surrealist still lifes, who spent her childhood in the legendary circle of artists and writers gathered around Sara and Gerald Murphy in Paris, died on July 22 at a hospital in Manhattan. She was 80.
Ms. Brennan was born in 1921 in Paris, where her parents, Richard and Alice Lee Myers, were well-known figures in the city's expatriate art community. The Murphys were close family friends. Educated in Europe and the United States, she enrolled in art school in Paris in 1938, met Tristan Tzara, had her portrait drawn by Giacometti and taught Picasso how to play Chinese checkers at the Cafe Flore.
When war broke out, she left for New York, where she worked for Harpers Bazaar and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1944, she was hired by the Office of War Information to work in Europe. She married the chief of its graphics and exhibitions division, Francis Brennan |
