Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting

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Organized by the National Portrait Gallery, London, and Senior Curator of Contemporary Collections, Sarah Howgate, Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting is the first major museum exhibition in the US dedicated to the work of one of the world's foremost figure painters. The exhibition will be overseen at the Modern by Chief Curator Andrea Karnes. Saville rose to prominence in the early 1990s, following her acclaimed degree show at the Glasgow School of Art. In the years since, she has played a leading role in the reinvigoration of figurative painting—a genre that she continues to test the limits of to this day. Her unique ability to create visceral portraits from thick layers of paint reveals an artist with a deep passion for the process itself, an act that she experiences as both energetic and bodily.

Bringing together fifty works spanning the artist’s career, this exhibition traces the evolution of her practice from the 1990s to today, spotlighting pivotal works while underscoring her enduring dialogue with art history. From charcoal drawings to large-scale oil paintings of the human form, this largely chronological presentation includes works that challenge conventional and historical ideals of female beauty. The exhibition also features the monumental nudes that catapulted Saville to acclaim in 1992, alongside a recent pioneering series of portraits that interrogate the intersections of the physical and the virtual in our image-saturated age.

Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting was created in close collaboration with the artist, and includes works borrowed from important public and private collections around the world. The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive publication, with texts from Emanuele Coccia, Dr Nicholas Cullinan, John Elderfield, Roxane Gay, and Karnes, and a conversation between Saville and Howgate. 

This exhibition contains mature subjects and nudity.