Born in California, she spent her childhood in the American Far West and, upon marrying the artist William C. McNulty, relocated to Manhattan at the age of 18 in 1914.

She took classes at the Art Students League where her teachers included two realist artists of the Ashcan School, George Luks and John Sloan.

From that year until her death in 1943, she took part regularly in group and solo exhibitions, receiving a growing amount of critical recognition and praise.

"[1] In reviewing a solo exhibition of her work in 1939, the artist and critic A.Z Kruse wrote: "She paints and composes with a thorough understanding of form and without the slightest hesitancy about anatomical structure.

Add to this a magnificent sense of proportion, and impeccable feeling for color and an unmistakable knowledge of what it takes to balance the elements of good pictorial composition and you have a typical Ann Brockman canvas.

[8][10] Brockman returned to the Art Students League in 1926 to take individual instruction for a month at a time from George Luks and John Sloan.

[10] in reviewing the memorial exhibition at the Kraushaar Galleries held in 1945, reviewers wrote about the strength and vibrancy of her personality, the quality of her painting ("every bit as good, possibly better than people had thought"),[53] called her "one of the best of our twentieth century women painters", and credited "her sense of the vividness of life" as a contributor to "the unusual breadth that is so characteristic of her work.

In 1938, Howard Devree wrote: "Her gray-day marines and coast scenes are familiar to gallery goers and are favorites with her fellow artists.

One spirited circus incident of equestriennes about to enter the big tent compares not unfavorably with many of the similar pictures by a long line of painters who have been fascinated by the theme.

"[51] Similarly, a critic for Art Digest wrote that year: "Fluently and virilely painted, [her] canvases suggest a close affinity between nature and humans.

A fast tempo is felt in the compositions of restless horses and nimble entertainers busily alert for the coming performance.

Miss Brockman is also interested in portraying frightened groups of people, hurrying to safety or standing half-clad in the lowering storm light.

Of the former, one critic spoke of the rich colors and "sun-drenched rocks" of her coastal scenes and another of her "summery landscapes of coves and picnics.

"[11][50] Of the latter, Howard Devree said she "painted so many moody Maine coast vignettes of lowering skies and uneasy seas that artists have been heard to refer to an effect as 'an Ann Brockman day'".

An example of Brockman's bright palette in a typical summer theme is the oil painting called "High School Picnic" shown above, Image No.

1930)[86] Helen and Bob; a First Reader, by Albert C. Lisson, Evelyn V. Thomet (illustrated by Ann Brockman, F. A. Owen, Dansville, N. Y.

1930)[87] The house in Hidden lane, Two Mysteries for Younger Girls, by Augusta Huiell Seaman (illustrated by Ann Brockman, Garden City, N. Y., Doubleday, Doran & company, 1931).

[59] Many of the covers showed screen actors, including French actress Andrée Lafayette,[12] the Talmadge sisters, Constance and Norma,[63][89] Alice Terry,[66] Claire Windsor,[64] and Betty Compson (see Image No.

In 1926, she drew the cover for the final issue of a literary periodical called' Ainslee's Magazine that had become known for publishing writers such as Stephen Crane, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Bret Harte, and Dorothy Parker (see Image No.

[95] In 1919, Jack Bechdolt and his wife Mabel took rooms in the townhouse that Brockman and her husband had rented in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.

[98] When her success at efficient kitchen management became apparent, her friends and acquaintances urged her to write an instruction book on the subject.

In that year, she began writing regular articles in a monthly literary magazine called The Smart Set for which Brockman prepared illustrations.

[73] In addition to recipes, the articles treated all aspects of meal preparation and such matters as the efficient hosting of social events.

Titles included "Party Times Are Coming", "Picnicking Made Easy", "A Sixty Minute Menu For a Holiday Dinner", and "You'll Get Your Man" (see Image No.

[73][75][78][80][81] Brockman wrote short poems to accompany a page of illustrations in the November 1929 issue of Parents' Magazine (see image No.

[100] inches 1931, Brockman's husband William C. McNulty began teaching a class with live models at the Art Students League.

[110] Brockman was eighteen years old and living in Seattle when she married William Charles McNulty, who was then a newspaper cartoonist in that city.

[8][4] Soon after the wedding, the couple moved to New York and in 1917 began renting a townhouse in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, which would be her principal residence for the rest of her life.

[54] Another said: "As so many still remember, Ann Brockman had great personal qualities generosity, graciousness, à sense of the vividness of life, and above all, enduring courage.