Artist: Jenny Saville

Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting is the first major museum exhibition in the UK dedicated to the work of one of the world’s foremost contemporary artists. 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 50 works made throughout the artist’s career, Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting will trace the development of her practice from the 1990s to today, spotlighting key artworks from her career and while exploring her lasting connection to art history. From charcoal drawings to large-scale oil paintings of the human form, this broadly chronological display will include works that question the conventional and historical notions of female beauty, as well as the monumental nudes that launched Saville to acclaim in 1992 and new ‘portraits’ made for the twenty-first century. Rendered in fluorescent, saturated tones, this pioneering series interrogates the connections between the physical and virtual in our image saturated age.

Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting has been created in close collaboration with the artist, with works borrowed from important public and private collections from around the world. The exhibition will be accompanied by a comprehensive publication of the same name, which includes texts from Emanuele Coccia, Dr Nicholas Cullinan, John Elderfield, Roxane Gay, and Andrea Karnes, as well as a conversation between Saville and the show’s curator, Sarah Howgate, and newly commissioned studio images by artist Sally Mann.