Tim O'Brien

Who is Tim O'Brien?

Tim O'Brien is an American artist.

Tim O'Brien is an American illustrator/artist who works in a realistic style. Illustrations by O'Brien appear in magazines such as Time Magazine, Newsweek, The Atlantic Monthly, National Geographic and others. His illustrations are also used by the US Postal Service for postage stamps, such as the Judy Garland stamp and the Hattie McDaniel stamp, both issued in 2006.

The second of three boys in his family, O'Brien trained as a boxer in high school and boxed as a middleweight amateur. Beyond his work as an illustrator he stays active in the boxing world as a trainer.

O'Brien received a Pell Grant and used it to enroll in the Paier College of Art, New Haven, CT., graduating in 1987 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. His instructors at Paier included Leonard Everett Fisher.

In an interviewed conducted by The Illustrators Guild of Ireland in 2002, O'Brien described his style by saying, "My description is conceptual realism with a leaning toward the slightly idealized".