Tell Me Beautiful Untrue Things

The Connor Brothers are a pair of contemporary British artists producing funky Pop art. Their figurative, pin-up style prints and paintings often feature images of women and solid blocks of color punctuated by snippets of cheeky text. Each piece hints at a scene from a sensationalist story, inviting the viewer to fill in the rest.

The artists behind The Connor Brothers are Mike Snelle and James Golding. Former art dealers, the two began making art together in 2012. At first, they presented the work as being by the fictional American twins Franklyn and Brendan Connor. They even came up with an elaborate backstory: the brothers were escapees from a cult known as “The Family.”

Shortly after appearing on the scene, Snelle and Golding began selling work at art shows and fairs around London. Their work was auctioned at Bonhams and Christie’s alongside artists like Damien Hirst and Banksy. As their prominence grew, the alter-egos that were supposed to be a fun ruse grew more inconvenient. The pair decided to come clean in an exclusive interview with The Telegraph in 2014.

Though their admission caused a minor uproar in the art world, it allowed The Connor Brothers greater freedom of expression. In 2015, they produced a performance at Banksy’s Dismaland “bemusement park” to comment on the refugee crisis. The pair have also partnered with British rapper Professor Green and the mental health charity CALM to draw attention to men’s mental health issues in the United Kingdom. In 2019, they raised £100,000 for CALM with the auction of 12 unique donated prints.

The Connors Brothers have exhibited throughout London, as well as in Berlin, Los Angeles, New York and Sydney. Their work is in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

On 1stDibs, find The Connor Brothers’ paintings, prints, mixed media and more.

Decorating with fine art prints — whether they’re figurative prints, abstract prints or another variety — has always been a practical way of bringing a space to life as well as bringing works by an artist you love into your home.

Pursued in the 1960s and ’70s, largely by Pop artists drawn to its associations with mass production, advertising, packaging and seriality, as well as those challenging the primacy of the Abstract Expressionist brushstroke, printmaking was embraced in the 1980s by painters and conceptual artists ranging from David Salle and Elizabeth Murray to Adrian Piper and Sherrie Levine.

Printmaking is the transfer of an image from one surface to another. An artist takes a material like stone, metal, wood or wax, carves, incises, draws or otherwise marks it with an image, inks or paints it and then transfers the image to a piece of paper or other material.

Fine art prints are frequently confused with their more commercial counterparts. After all, our closest connection to the printed image is through mass-produced newspapers, magazines and books, and many people don’t realize that even though prints are editions, they start with an original image created by an artist with the intent of reproducing it in a small batch. Fine art prints are created in strictly limited editions — 20 or 30 or maybe 50 — and are always based on an image created specifically to be made into an edition.

Many people think of revered Dutch artist Rembrandt as a painter but may not know that he was a printmaker as well. His prints have been preserved in time along with the work of other celebrated printmakers such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol. These fine art prints are still highly sought after by collectors.

“It’s another tool in the artist’s toolbox, just like painting or sculpture or anything else that an artist uses in the service of mark making or expressing him- or herself,” says International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) vice president Betsy Senior, of New York’s Betsy Senior Fine Art, Inc.

Because artist’s editions tend to be more affordable and available than his or her unique works, they’re more accessible and can be a great opportunity to bring a variety of colors, textures and shapes into a space.

For tight corners, select small fine art prints as opposed to the oversized bold piece you’ll hang as a focal point in the dining area. But be careful not to choose something that is too big for your space. And feel free to lean into it if need be — not every work needs picture-hanging hooks. Leaning a larger fine art print against the wall behind a bookcase can add a stylish installation-type dynamic to your living room. (Read more about how to arrange wall art here.)

Find fine art prints for sale on 1stDibs today.