The return of Chuck Connelly: One of America's greatest modern artists who spiralled out of control after upsetting Scorsese and Saatchi in 1980s New York is BACK - sober and selling

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Chuck Connelly has been described as Van Gogh reincarnate, America's greatest modern artist and his own worst enemy.

Born in Pittsburgh in 1955 to hard drinking parents, he followed in the footsteps of fellow Pittsburgher Andy Warhol and moved to New York, selling more than a million dollars' worth of paintings in the 1980s and proving his salesman father wrong when he said he would never make a living out of art.

His work was hung in the permanent collection of New York's Metropolitan Museum and he was courted by film director Martin Scorsese and international art dealing supremo Charles Saatchi.

But in two reckless strokes that would have been funny had they not been so destructive, he succeeded in upsetting both kingmakers and put pay to his own glittering career before it had even taken off.

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Considering his self-destructive lifestyle he looks good for his age. If you cross Anthony Bourdain with Jim Carrey you got somewhere close to Chuck Connelly. He sold over a million dollars of art in the 1980s (right) before things took a serious turn for the worse

Animals in the Street, 2015: This huge 9ft by 5ft canvas hangs in Connelly's Philadelphia bedroom on the wall at the foot of his bed. It is a nod to his time living in New York's East Village in the 1980s. It sums up his feelings towards the city: 'It was always so distracting, the whole "art scene thing". Blow the island up - it's purged' he adds, part joking, part serious

The Battle: In 1985 British art dealer and advertising mogul Charles Saatchi bought this giant 228" x 180" Connelly painting called The Battle for $30,000. Months later he walked into Connelly's New York studio, told him he was opening a museum and wanted him in the premiere show alongside Jeff Koons and Ross Bleckner

As if that wasn't bad enough he spent the following twenty years drinking himself close to death while fighting with pretty much every art dealer, gallery owner and patron who showed an interest in his work.

Chuck Connelly's one saving grace is that throughout this time he never stopped painting.

Connelly graduated from Philadelphia's Tyler School of art in 1977 and immediately found work as a handyman in the convent behind the college, painting the bedrooms of the nuns, before being fired months later 'for not being a team player', or rather causing a scene after 'fending off the advances of another handyman who touched my nipples in the elevator'

He spent the following three years painting while on welfare, convinced that if he couldn't hold down a job in a convent then he wouldn't be able to hold down a job anywhere.

Through an artist friend in New York he sold one of his paintings for $500 and used it as a down payment on an East Village apartment on 10th Street between 1st and A - hitting a gritty, bohemian enclave of the city where he was to spend the following twenty years.

Through another friend he was introduced to Dr Robert Atkins - the famous carb-hating dietician and art collector. Taking a shine to Connelly's work he became his patron and paid him $600 a month - a figure Connelly doubled by sub-letting his New York apartment and following a girlfriend to Düsseldorf where he fell in with a group of artists a time when Germany's art world was experiencing somewhat of a rude awakening.

If his later years were spent in art world's purgatory his early years were on its front line.

'Even at school as a child I studied with Andy Warhol's nephews who used to bring in the Campbell's soup cans he used to paint. In Germany I was part of a group of artists who were doing great things. I always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. I really thought that it was all about to happen for me.'

Nude 2014: An exquisite example of Connelly's technical ability and range. He has been commissioned by the rich and famous for portraits but has also painted homeless men off the streets of Philadelphia - and his neighbors

Back to School (left), painted in 2014, was a reaction to the spate of school shootings that have plagued his beloved country. The UK guerilla street artist Banksy has very much followed in Connelly's footsteps. The Gift, painted in 2004, includes on of Connelly's favorite subjects: The Clown. He first painted one in his kindergarten. 'I didn't realize at the time it was a self-portrait', he says - again part in jest, part serious

In the Jeff Stimmel 2008 Emmy-winning documentary Chuck Connelly: The Art of Failure, Connelly can be seen in drunken screaming fits of rage lamenting the helpless role of the artist reliant on dealers and galleries for a wage and recognition. He has been sober for four years now after his friends staged an intervention and convinced him to seek help at rehab. He admits his work, for years,  was driven by the guilt he felt while hungover and claims he probably wouldn't have been able to produce some of his darker pieces had it not been for alcohol. Right is Chuck Connelly as a young boy growing up in Pittsburgh

Tornado 2010: What is apparent in much of Connelly's work is his wicked sense of humor and sense of fun. The colors are warm, the paintings often so vibrant despite the serious subject matters. It is as if he views the world with a child-friendly, Wizard of Oz filter that helps produce such lovable paintings

Children with Toys, 2010: As with the paradox of the clown, Connelly perfectly captures the sadness and vulnerability of children. His own childhood was tinged with sadness and loneliness, growing up in the macho steely environment of Pittsburgh and wanting to paint rather than play sport

One night before his show in Germany he threw a Steiner beer glass in the direction of another artist in a bar row that saw him 'shown the door real quick by bouncers who then stomped on my leg and broke it'.

Hobbling into his show on crutches he was approached by New York art dealing power couple Michael Werner and Mary Boone.

Werner bought four paintings on the spot and told him he would match whatever Atkins was paying him - boosting Connelly's income and giving him a good reason to return to New York.

Backing in the city he was beginning to make the right kinds of noise. Gallerists were eager to show the work of this neo-expressionist with an expert technical ability and imagination second to none.

The Metropolitan bought his Ausburg oil painting to hang in their permanent collection and in 1984 he was given a show at Annina Nosei's gallery- one of the most influential living art dealers who had also just taken on bad boy street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

A Basquiat self-portrait painted in the basement of Nosei's gallery in 1981 when he was 21 last year went on sale at Christie's for $20m.

In 1985 British art dealer and advertising mogul Charles Saatchii bought a giant 15ft by 9ft Connelly painting called The Battle for $30,000. Months later he walked into Connelly's New York studio, told him he was opening a museum and wanted him in the premiere show alongside Jeff Koons and Ross Bleckner

What followed is scarcely believable considering Saatchi's clout at the time.

Pictured at the opening of his East Village exhibition at the Dorian Grey Gallery. Look carefully and you will see the hair from his beloved cat Fluffy on his jacket. Following the success of the exhibition it has been extended through March 29th

Come Home from the Candy Factory, 2012: In this we see a Roald Dahl-esque mixing of the child-like with the macabre as pollution and bleakness pour forth from the Candy Factory on the hill

Masked Children 2010: Another stunning painting on display at the Dorian Grey Gallery in the East Village

The Death of Factory Man can be seen in the the Lower East Side's Dorian Grey gallery. It is Connelly's take on the slow decline of his hometown's core industry and a tragic depiction of the life of America's blue collar worker, forever governed by the clock. It's a story that Connelly knows only too well coming from 1970s Pittsburgh and the son of a salesman

Left is Fluffy the cat who roams Connelly's house. Both paintings feature in the exhibition at the Dorian Grey Gallery in the East Village

Here was a man who had just spent a small 1980s fortune on an emerging artist and who is known the world over for single-handedly launching the careers of Tracy Emin and Damien Hirst to name but a few, only for Connelly to respond with a look that said: Koons? Bleckner? Is that as good as you've got?

'At the time Jeff Koons wasn't the Jeff Koons he is today and I remember thinking I wanted to be with substantial painters.

'I think I gave Saatchi a little bit of a distressed look and that was it.'

Saatchi left, never to be heard if again. The Battle painting he bought for $30,000 went up for sale shortly after for a minimum of $5,000.

It is testament to Connelly's brutal, unflinching honesty, so prevalent in his work, that he was unable to disguise his feelings and 'play the game' with Saatchi.

In the Jeff Stimmel 2008 Emmy-winning documentary Chuck Connelly: The Art of Failure, Connelly can be seen in a drunken screaming fit of rage lamenting the helpless role of the artist reliant on dealers and galleries for a wage and recognition.

'Saatchi can get back on the bus with all the other clowns for all I care, he said defiantly last week as he sat on his Philadelphia living room sofa tucking into a brownie and glass of milk.

'They reek vengeance. They throw you away without even lifting a finger', he added.

Saatchi's exit coincided with the ushering in of Minimalism - a far cry from Connelly's highly inventive style of expressionist painting.

Nosei dropped him and so too did his patron from Germany Michael Werner - in a callous way that Connelly has never been able to forget.

'He (Werner') came into my studio with his big cigar wafting out smoke.

'He said to me: "I'm looking for the next great American modern artist you're not it" before turning around and walking out in this cloud of cigar smoke'.

All was not over however. In 1987 his phone rang. It was Martin Scorcese's office.

'I thought it was a joke. They said they were looking for an artist who could be a model for his film New York Stories: Life Lesson'.

Scorcese told Connelly how he loved his work and wanted to bring it to Beverly Hills so all his friends could have it in their homes.

Connelly's home on a tree-lined Philadephia suburb is an Aladdin's Cave of art. Thousands of paintings like these stand stacked against each other like paving slabs at a stonemason's yard

The 1989 film about an artist who found himself unable to paint in the lead up to his major gallery exhibition starred Nick Nolte as Connelly and featured many of Connelly's paintings.

George Rush from the New York Post called Connelly at home once filming had finished and asked him his thoughts.

'I told him I thought it was cliched, mundane and no Raging Bull', said Connelly.

The next day the Post ran his response across the top of Page Six and needless to say Scorcese was furious.

'I called his office and his secretary said "Marty is real pissed with you". I wrote a letter too trying to explain myself. I didn't know this writer was going to use what I was saying word for word. I was just having a conversation with him and that's the part they used', he said.

Connelly's star had pretty much crashed and burned. He stayed on in New York for another decade, selling fewer and fewer paintings and cutting a familiar figure in bars across the Lower East Side, often being thrown out for making a nuisance of himself, particularly on the nights he mixed beer with whisky.

In a last ditch attempt to get New York to take notice he got a young actor to tout his work around using his nom de plume Fred Scaboda.

Gallerist responded to invitations to visit a temporary studio he rented and Connelly looked on as his actor friend invented back stories to the paintings that hung on the walls.

The actor was given a show and in Stimmel's documentary Connelly can be seen peering in from outside as collectors viewed his work.

Despite the interest and offers to buy, Connelly refused to sell any because he felt the offers were too low.

By 1999 his Tribeca studio rent had risen to $2850, up from $1800 in 1994, and he could no longer afford to stay.

A friend lived out in Philadelphia and told him the next door house was going for $1400 a month. He took it.

He spent the following ten years painting and drinking heavily in his Victoria detached Philadelphia home. His wife divorced him and his friends staged an intervention in 2010 and carted him off to rehab amid fears he would kill himself.

A harrowing story he tells from his childhood explains much not only about himself but also his work.

His father gave up drinking when Connelly was two years old. His mother accelerated hers.

'She would get drunk and start shouting at dad, mocking his dead mother. Dad would grab her and drag her to the sink where he would pour the vodka bottle all over her head.

'I could never figure out who was in the wrong: Mom for mocking his dead mother or dad for beating her.'

After one month and at a cost of $30,000 (he didn't and still doesn't have health insurance) he got sober.

Returning to his tree-lined Philadephia suburb home, he turned it into an Aladdin's Cave of art. Thousands of paintings stand stacked against each other like paving slabs at a stonemason's yard.

He works tirelessly everyday getting up at 7am and painting well into the evening. He breaks for lunch, forever has the TV on and wishes he could still get drunk. 

His paintings are prime examples of a master technician at work yet give off a child-like, Wizard of Oz like feel that is once lovable and disconcerting

Connelly works tirelessly everyday getting up at 7am and painting well into the evening. He breaks for lunch, forever has the TV on and wishes he could still get drunk.

His cat, Fluffy, weaves in out of the paintings covered in paint flecks.

His friend and manager Catherine helps keep his life in order and escapes to the 'panic room' upstairs - a small closet full of his early work, whenever she needs time out.

Considering his self-destructive lifestyle he looks good for his age. If you cross Anthony Bourdain with Jim Carrey you got somewhere close to Chuck Connelly.

He has a booming, smoky voice and a quick intelligent wit. His setbacks are treated with sardonic humor.

This humor tinged with sadness is apparent in all of his work, no matter how serious the subject.

At the height of his fame he was commissioned to paint a rich woman's portrait. 

'She was attractive, glamorous but with a larger than average nose', he said.

'When I finished she said she didn't like the nose and called me back to do another one'.

Connelly returned but rather than paint her whole face again he simply painted a giant nose. She kept both paintings.

Unsurprisingly a clown was the very first thing he remembers drawing at kindergarten. 'I didn't realise it was a self-portrait' he adds, half joking half serious.

His paintings are prime examples of a master technician at work yet give off a child-like, Wizard of Oz feel that is at once lovable and disconcerting.

If you could convert the fantastical, elegant writing of Roald Dahl into painting, Chuck Connelly is close to what you would get.

At the beginning of this year his work was exhibited at the Warhol Museum - his first ever museum solo.

Off the back of the Warhol museum success, curator Molua Muldown from the Dorian Grey Gallery in the East Village spent the following few months gently persuading Connelly to show again.

Fortunately for New York he agreed and 20 of his paintings can now be seen until March 29th at the Dorian Grey gallery.

But surely his time has passed? Far from it, according to Muldown: 'I believe we're experiencing the birth of a new era in response to our Techno Age', she said.

'In recent years, the art world's focus has been on what the noted artist and art critic Walter Robinson calls "zombie formalism".

'We're seeing a movement away from the sterility of this kind of art as people begin to seek out art with humanity evident in both execution and subject matter.

'Mr. Connelly's paintings are ideal examples of this deeply human kind of work. Viewers are moved by this master painter's passionate execution and by the pursuit of truth and beauty expressed in his choice of subject matter'.

However much Connelly himself is to blame for his early downfall you can't help but side with him. His art is his life, he treats each of his paintings like the children he never had and would rather keep them stacked up in his home than undersell them and have them 'come back to haunt me'.

Now, one hopes, is his second chance. Or should that be his third? Whatever it is he is more than ready for it.

'I'm tired of climbing up hill', he says. I want to coast for a while', he says, half joking, half serious.

 Chuck Connelly: The Spirit of Vision can be seen at the Dorian Grey Gallery until March 29th. 

Pictured here having a smoke outside the Dorian Grey Gallery. Smoking is the one vice he hasn't given up

A clown was the very first thing Connelly remembers drawing. As a child he remembers his brother doing a painting-by-numbers picture of a clown. Connelly took one look at it and did a replica only without the numbers and with his own colors. He knew then he wanted to be an artist