Chuck Connelly

Chuck Connelly (1955–2025) was an American painter born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He earned his B.F.A. from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia in 1977, spent two years in Germany on fellowship, and established himself in New York City's SoHo scene in the early 1980s, becoming a recognized figure of the Neo-Expressionist movement alongside contemporaries such as Julian Schnabel and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

His paintings were marked by thick pigmentation, spontaneous emotional intensity paired with technical control, and disparate, often inscrutable subject matter — houses, humanoid animals, domestic and apocalyptic imagery, and scenes drawn from his native Pittsburgh's industrial landscape. His combative reputation drew wider cultural attention: Martin Scorsese modeled a character in New York Stories (1989), played by Nick Nolte, on him, and the 2008 HBO documentary The Art of Failure: Chuck Connelly Not for Sale chronicled his career and long struggle for recognition. In 2014 the Andy Warhol Museum featured his work in the Pittsburgh Biennial.

Connelly relocated to Philadelphia in the late 1990s and continued painting prolifically there for the rest of his life. He died on April 13, 2025, at his home in Philadelphia, at age 70. His archive is maintained by the Chuck Connelly Archives, which continues to present his work, including a body of paintings released posthumously from his studio.