Jenny Saville facts for kids

Jennifer Anne Saville RA (born 7 May 1970) is a famous British painter. She is known for her unique way of painting people. Jenny Saville was one of the first members of a group called the Young British Artists. She lives and works in Oxford, England.

Saville is known for making figure painting new and exciting for today's art world. Some of her paintings are small, but many are very large. She often gets ideas for her huge artworks from medical books. These books show how bodies can be injured or changed. Her art explores how we can shape our own lives and bodies.

Early Life and Education

Jenny Saville was born in Cambridge, England. She went to secondary school at Lilley and Stone School in Newark. Later, she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Glasgow School of Art (1988–1992).

After Glasgow, she received a six-month scholarship. This allowed her to study at the University of Cincinnati in the United States. There, she took a course in women's studies. This experience introduced her to important ideas about gender and famous feminist writers.

Jenny Saville's Art Career

After Jenny Saville finished her art degree, a top British art collector named Charles Saatchi saw her work. He bought one of her paintings. Her first group of paintings were large pictures of herself and other people. Saatchi then offered her a special contract. This contract supported her for 18 months while she created new art. These new works were shown at the Saatchi Gallery in London.

In 1994, her self-portrait called Plan (1993) was the main piece in an exhibition. This show was called Young British Artists III. Jenny Saville quickly became well-known. She was part of the Young British Artists (YBA) group. Saville is famous for using a classic art style—painting figures—but with a modern twist.

Since her first show in 1992, Saville has focused on painting the female body. In 1994, she spent many hours watching medical operations in New York City. She looked at how bodies change or are reshaped. Her sketches and notes from this time include pictures of bodies that have been altered.

Many of her paintings show bodies with changed shapes. She uses strong brush strokes and thick oil paint. Some works even show marks that look like a surgeon's lines. Her paintings are usually much bigger than real life. They are often six by six feet or even larger. She uses very bright and strong colors. People have compared her painting style to famous artists like Lucian Freud and Rubens.

Album Covers by Saville

In 1994, Jenny Saville's painting Strategy (South Face/Front Face/North Face) was used. It became the cover for the band Manic Street Preachers' album The Holy Bible.

Later, in 2009, her painting Stare (2005) was used again. This time, it was for the band's album Journal for Plague Lovers. Some major supermarkets in the UK sold the CD in a plain cover. They thought the original artwork was "inappropriate." The band members said this decision was "very strange." Still, the album cover art came in second in a 2009 poll for Best Art Vinyl.

Recent Artworks

In 2002, Jenny Saville worked with photographer Glen Luchford. They made huge photos of Saville lying on glass, taken from below. Luchford is a well-known fashion photographer. He has worked for big brands like Gucci and Prada. Saville wanted to work with him to show her ideas about the female body.

In her newer art, Saville uses pencils, charcoal, and pastels. She explores shapes that overlap. These shapes suggest movement and different looks. Saville says that drawing over older body forms in new ways gives her art a "life force." It shows a cycle of things being destroyed and then reborn.

In 2018, Saville's painting Propped (1992) was sold at Sothebys' in London. It sold for £9.5 million. This was much higher than the expected price of £3-£4 million. It became the most expensive artwork by a living female artist ever sold at auction.

How Saville Shows the Body

Showing the human body is a very important part of Jenny Saville's art. This focus has made her famous around the world. She says that most of her style comes from this theme. Her painting Propped (1992) is her most expensive work sold at auction. Experts at Sothebys' call it "one of the undisputed masterpieces of the Young British Artists." They say this painting is amazing because it is a self-portrait that "shatters" old ideas of female beauty.

In an interview, Saville talked about how she paints. She said she works hard to make the paint feel real. She wants it to build the shape of a stomach or the inside of a thigh. She finds it interesting how close her art is to both abstract and realistic styles. She wants her paintings to have a "realism." She also thinks about the speed of a painting, having busy and calm areas. Listening to music helps her a lot, especially music with strong sounds and then soft, quiet parts.

Saville's art mainly focuses on women's bodies. Her work is very different from other art that shows women. She is more interested in the real and natural female form. Her art challenges old ways of showing women. It also questions today's perfect body images, often seen on social media. Saville does this by showing the bumps, dimples, rolls, and curves of women's bodies. She shows some of the normal features that have often been left out of art about women.

Saville's art was part of the "Women Painting Women" exhibition in 2022. This show was held at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Painting Technique and Color Choices

Jenny Saville uses small brushstrokes to build up her paintings. This makes the images look softer. The finished painting has a matte look, but it doesn't seem "dry." She also uses interesting, soft color combinations in her art. These colors create a gentle feeling, even when the subject is intense.

Saville uses oil paint, putting on thick layers. This makes the paint itself feel as real as skin. Each brushstroke seems to have a soft, moving life of its own. Saville pushes, smears, and scrapes the paint over her huge canvases. She is also known for using very large canvases. These big sizes let viewers see all the details and layers of oil paints. This creates her special style of movement and realistic art.

Select Works

• Branded (1992). This is an oil painting on a 7 ft × 6 ft (2.1 m × 1.8 m) canvas. In this painting, Saville painted her own face onto a larger female body. The figure in the painting is holding folds of her skin, as if showing them off.
• Plan (1993). An oil painting on a 9 ft × 7 ft (2.7 m × 2.1 m) canvas.
• Closed Contact (1995–1996).
• Hybrid (1997). This oil painting is on a 7 ft × 6 ft (2.1 m × 1.8 m) canvas. In this artwork, the image looks like it's made of different patches. Parts of four female bodies are put together to create a unique piece.
• Fulcrum (1999). An oil painting on an 8+1⁄2 ft × 16 ft (2.6 m × 4.9 m) canvas. In this painting, three large women are piled on a medical cart. Thin vertical strips of tape were painted over and then removed. This creates a feeling of straight lines that are different from the large bodies.
• Hem (1999). An oil painting on a 10 ft × 7 ft (3.0 m × 2.1 m) canvas.
• Ruben's Flap (1998–1999). This oil painting is on a 10 ft × 8 ft (3.0 m × 2.4 m) canvas. This painting shows Saville herself. She multiplies her body, letting it fill the canvas space. What's interesting is how the body is broken into parts.
• Matrix (1999). An oil painting on a 7 ft × 10 ft (2.1 m × 3.0 m) canvas.

Exhibitions

• 1992 – Cooling Gallery, London, UK (where Saatchi bought her work)
• 1994 – "Young British Artists III", Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
• 1996 – "Contemporary British Art '96", Museum of Kalmar, Stockholm, Sweden
• 1996 – "A Collaboration", with Glen Luchford, Pace/McGill Gallery, New York, US
• 1997 – 'Sensation', Royal Academy of Art, London, UK (this show made Saville's work famous to the British public)
• 1999 – "Territories", Gagosian Gallery, New York (SoHo), US (her first big solo show)
• 2002 – "Closed Contact", with Glen Luchford, Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills, California, US
• 2003 – "Migrants", Gagosian Gallery, New York (Chelsea), US
• 2004 – Large Scale Polaroids by Jenny Saville and Glen Luchford, University of Massachusetts Amherst, East Gallery
• 2005 – Solo Exhibition, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Roma, Rome
• 2006 – First exhibition, Museo Carlo Billoti, Rome, Italy
• 2010 – Gagosian Gallery, London, UK
• 2011 – "Continuum", Gagosian Gallery, New York City, US
• 2012 – "Jenny Saville, Solo Show", Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, US. (Part of the Norton's RAW series – Recognition of Art by Women)
• 2012 – Jenny Saville's first solo exhibition in the UK was held at Modern Art Oxford.
• 2014 – "Egon Schiele - Jenny Saville", Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich, CH
• 2016 – 'Jenny Saville Drawing', Ashmolean Museum, Venice, Italy. (This was the final part of the 'Titian to Canaletto: Drawing in Venice' exhibition). She made twenty new works on paper and canvas for this show.
• 2016 – "Erota", Gagosian Gallery, London, UK. This exhibition showed her recent drawings inspired by the "Titian to Canaletto" exhibition.
• "Ancestors", 3 May – 23 July 2018 at Gagosian Gallery, 522 West 21st Street, New York
• 2018 – "Now", Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Scotland, UK (during the Edinburgh Art Festival)
• 2018 – "Jenny Saville", The George Economou Collection, Athens, Greece

Images for kids

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  The Saatchi Gallery opened in 1985

See also

In Spanish: Jenny Saville para niños