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Jenny Saville
At thirty-two, Jenny Saville has had a career most artists twice her age would envy. In 1992, the year she completed her studies at Glasgow School of Art, her graduation exhibition sold out. Most notably, one painting was bought by Charles Saatchi and, since then, her international reputation has grown at a rapid and steady pace.Jenny Saville is described as a "New Old Master" for the technical proficiency of her oversize nudes that have earned her comparisons to Rubens and Lucian Freud and universal praise from critics and art historians alike. For the conceptual underpinnings of her work, she has been hailed as one of the most interesting artists of the last decade. Her work has been shown alongside that of Damien Hirst and the other Young British Artists in the acclaimed and seminal survey of new British art Sensation at the Royal Academy (London, 1997) and the Brooklyn Museum of Art (New York, 2000).This is the only monograph devoted to the critically acclaimed young artist and features all of Jenny Saville's paintings to date-including many previously unpublished. This volume is being published in association with the Gagosian Gallery in London. The power of her brilliant and relentless embodiment of our worst anxieties about our own corporeality and gender is what distinguishes Saville from other paint-obsessed representers of the naked human body. To my eye, no other artist in recent memory has combined empathy and distance with such visual and emotional impact. -Linda Nochlin, Art in America, March 2000
160 pages, Hardcover
First published November 8, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 29, 2007
It would be difficult to find a more original and valuable voice in modern figure painting. Saville is the natural heir to great British artists like Freud and Bacon, and will prove, I think, to be one of the two or three most influencial painters of her generation.
December 23, 2010
Despite all the flaws of the book, Saville's Importance Rings True
Jenny Saville is a big painter! Probably one of the few painters in history whose career was launched at her finals show form art school, Saville has established herself as one of the more exciting figurative artists of our time. Right up there with Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud in her ability to splash daring observations and passions on huge canvases, she has already establish a 'look' that is unmistakable.
Not that Saville was the first painter to dwell on the massively/morbidly obese female (Freud's 'carcasses' were startlingly new, Haneline Rogeberg has painted the full figured female for years, etc), but her superimposition of surgical alteration and disease states together with the painterly style of describing flesh are startling and awe inspiring. Placing multiple figures together ('Fulcrum') or conjoined or simply overloading the capacity of a sitter's stool emphasizes the magnitude of her thoughts on her very large canvases.
Many people are grumbling about the design of the book and the paucity of completed works and to an extent this is reason for concern. The four essays may be old to those who have followed her career, but to those to whom Jenny Saville is a discovery these four writings do add depth to understanding her skyrocketing rise to fame. It is terrific to see photographs of the materials in her studio that have inspired her paintings: drawings, surgical photographs of liposuction, trauma victims, deformity correction, disease states, transgender patients and notes all add to the atmosphere of the studio where she works.
Perhaps the next monograph, and there surely will be one as Saville continues to grow and mature, will give us more new work. Until then at least we have a large book that congregates the bulk of her work and for that we should be grateful! Recommended.
Grady Harp
Jenny Saville is a big painter! Probably one of the few painters in history whose career was launched at her finals show form art school, Saville has established herself as one of the more exciting figurative artists of our time. Right up there with Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud in her ability to splash daring observations and passions on huge canvases, she has already establish a 'look' that is unmistakable.
Not that Saville was the first painter to dwell on the massively/morbidly obese female (Freud's 'carcasses' were startlingly new, Haneline Rogeberg has painted the full figured female for years, etc), but her superimposition of surgical alteration and disease states together with the painterly style of describing flesh are startling and awe inspiring. Placing multiple figures together ('Fulcrum') or conjoined or simply overloading the capacity of a sitter's stool emphasizes the magnitude of her thoughts on her very large canvases.
Many people are grumbling about the design of the book and the paucity of completed works and to an extent this is reason for concern. The four essays may be old to those who have followed her career, but to those to whom Jenny Saville is a discovery these four writings do add depth to understanding her skyrocketing rise to fame. It is terrific to see photographs of the materials in her studio that have inspired her paintings: drawings, surgical photographs of liposuction, trauma victims, deformity correction, disease states, transgender patients and notes all add to the atmosphere of the studio where she works.
Perhaps the next monograph, and there surely will be one as Saville continues to grow and mature, will give us more new work. Until then at least we have a large book that congregates the bulk of her work and for that we should be grateful! Recommended.
Grady Harp
March 10, 2009
Okay, not for everyone i assure you. Very graphic very disturbing, but wonderful, imaginative and truly blazing with color.
Jenny has been watched and revered for years of course, and is one of the top 20 modern artists in the world to pay attention to. She is hopefully coming out with another series within the next 10 years, but we will have to wait and see.
Great book, great quality in the images, and honestly one of the only sources, besides in person that you will see the work this large. She is hard to track down for sure.
Jenny has been watched and revered for years of course, and is one of the top 20 modern artists in the world to pay attention to. She is hopefully coming out with another series within the next 10 years, but we will have to wait and see.
Great book, great quality in the images, and honestly one of the only sources, besides in person that you will see the work this large. She is hard to track down for sure.
June 5, 2017
Extracting my love of Saville's art from this book is hard. It contains one interview and several commentary essays on her work, which I found illuminating. The way the paintings are portrayed here is very different from how I experience them online (the only way I know them so far.) The colors are more subdued. I enjoyed the detail pages, though. I am looking forward to learning more about this phenomenal artist.
From Linda Nochlin's essay: "It is as though a Sargent had mated with a de Kooning before our eyes, and the coupling was more of a violent struggle than a love match."
From an interview Saville comments on the divide between what is created and what one pictures in one's mind, "I can barely look at the earlier painting I made. I realize that it's part of this journey but I feel sort of embarrassed by them. It sounds sickeningly romantic but you get used to a sort of sense of failure, even if it’s a kind of optimistic failure that makes you carry on. I think I may be getting closer to something interesting. I don't know if it's the same for other artists, but the more I do it, the more the medium itself has take a position."
From Linda Nochlin's essay: "It is as though a Sargent had mated with a de Kooning before our eyes, and the coupling was more of a violent struggle than a love match."
From an interview Saville comments on the divide between what is created and what one pictures in one's mind, "I can barely look at the earlier painting I made. I realize that it's part of this journey but I feel sort of embarrassed by them. It sounds sickeningly romantic but you get used to a sort of sense of failure, even if it’s a kind of optimistic failure that makes you carry on. I think I may be getting closer to something interesting. I don't know if it's the same for other artists, but the more I do it, the more the medium itself has take a position."
May 16, 2025
What a beautiful book - gobbled this one up in one sitting and was looking for more pages to flip through!
Seville's paintings are fully entrancing, and equally so are the gruesome scientific references the book generously sprinkles throughout. 10/10 for picture-to-text ratio. I enjoyed her poetic style of speaking, which came through in the interview. The level of thought, detail, and study Seville puts into her work shines throughout the book. I had visited a de Kooning gallery the same day, whose work she studies thoroughly. Her appreciation and learnings from his works can be seen all throughout her own, from brushstrokes creating motion in flesh.
Seville's paintings are fully entrancing, and equally so are the gruesome scientific references the book generously sprinkles throughout. 10/10 for picture-to-text ratio. I enjoyed her poetic style of speaking, which came through in the interview. The level of thought, detail, and study Seville puts into her work shines throughout the book. I had visited a de Kooning gallery the same day, whose work she studies thoroughly. Her appreciation and learnings from his works can be seen all throughout her own, from brushstrokes creating motion in flesh.
September 8, 2025
*5 stars*
FIVE STARS!!!! I’m obsessed with this artwork. Jenny Saville replicated and found inspiration from the morgue and butcher and I’m SO INTO IT. They’re stunning pieces of artwork, holy cow. Potentially my new favorite artist
FIVE STARS!!!! I’m obsessed with this artwork. Jenny Saville replicated and found inspiration from the morgue and butcher and I’m SO INTO IT. They’re stunning pieces of artwork, holy cow. Potentially my new favorite artist
November 10, 2008
Despite the dangers of absolutes, I have to say that Jenny Saville is the best thing that has ever happened to painting. And this book, while not without its limits (in scope, in color reproductions, etc.), provides a thoughtful glimpse into what Saville's work pushes toward and against. Read it, love it, live it.
November 5, 2012
Nice collection of her large format paintings sold through the Gagosian gallery. Not everyone cup of tea for sure but stunning none the less. I find her approach to form as beautiful as it is horrific in some cases. One of the really cool things about this book (other than the great photo quality of the paintings) is the images of the source material and reference studies.
June 11, 2008
Great images & studio shots. Close-ups of brushwork.
Want to read
November 16, 2008her work is incredible.... love it! want to learn more from this book. i would love to see her work in person one day.
November 25, 2008
Horrifically grotesque paintings that will amaze you. As an artist, I find her skills inspiring and overwhelming. One of the bets painters of our generation.
May 27, 2011
Gorgeous, sumptuous painting! Nicely designed.
August 30, 2012
Amazing artist/figurative painter.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews