Jenny Saville

Recurring figures depicted in her work range from mothers, children, transgender people, burn victims, and cosmetic surgery patients. Although her work subverts many beauty standards and is informed by contemporary feminist theory, she also often references art history in her paintings.

Jenny Saville studied at Slade School of Fine Art, University of Cincinnati and Glasgow School of Art. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is visual arts and painting. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are figurative. Places of work recorded in the authority are Palermo, Glasgow and London. Work by Jenny Saville is recorded in the collections of Tate, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Galleries Scotland and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

• Name — Jenny Saville • Honorific Suffix — RA • Birth Name — Jennifer Anne Saville • Birthplace — Cambridge, England • Field — Painting • Relatives — * Liz Saville Roberts (cousin) • Boo Saville (sister) • Mark Saville (Uncle) • Training — University of Cincinnati, Glasgow School of Art • Movement — Young British Artists • Awards — Royal Academician (2007)

Saville was born in Cambridge, England. For secondary school, she went to the Lilley and Stone School (now The Newark Academy) in Newark, Nottinghamshire. From 1988 to 1992, Saville earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree at the Glasgow School of Art. While studying there, she was awarded a six-month scholarship to the University of Cincinnati in 1991, where she enrolled in a course in women's studies.

• Illustration — The Saatchi Gallery, London Saville's early works included large-scale self-portraits and other portraiture. Since her debut in 1992, Saville's focus has remained on the female body, stating she is "drawn to bodies that emanate a sort of state of in-betweenness: hermaphrodite, a transvestite, a carcass, a half-alive/half-dead head." Charles Saatchi offered Saville an 18-month contract, supporting her while she created new works to be exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery in London. In 1994, the exhibition Young British Artists III displayed Saville's self-portrait, Plan (1993), as the signature piece. Saville is regarded as being part of the Young British Artists (YBAs). Also n 1994, Saville observed plastic surgery operations in New York City. Her published sketches and documents include surgical photographs of liposuction, trauma victims, deformity correction, disease, and transgender patients. Much of her work features distorted flesh, while others show the marks of plastic surgery. Between 1995 and 1996, Saville collaborated with photographer Glen Luchford to produce Closed Contact, a series of large photographic C-prints which depict Saville's nude body pressed up against a clear panel. The photographs were taken from underneath the glass and depict the female figure very distorted. The series explores femininity and the challenges the perception of the female body. The works were shown in 2002 at the Gagosian Gallery in Beverley Hills. In 2004, Saville explored the idea of floating gender in her work Passage. Saville is quoted saying "With the transvestite I was searching for a body that was between genders. I had explored that idea a little in Matrix. The idea of floating gender is not fixed. The transvestite I worked with has a natural penis and false silicone breasts. Thirty or forty years ago this body couldn't have existed and I was looking for a kind of contemporary architecture of the body. I wanted to paint a visual passage through gender – a sort of gender landscape." In 2018, Saville's Propped (1992) sold at Sotheby's in London for £9.5 million, well above its £3-£4 million estimate, becoming the most expensive work by a living female artist sold at auction. Saville's work Propped (1992) was described as "one of the undisputed masterpieces of the Young British Artists" by Sotheby's European head of Contemporary Art, Alex Branczik. This piece is said to be masterful because it is "the superlative self-portrait that shatters canonised representations of female beauty." In 2023, Saville was one of two women (alongside Julie Mehretu) to have made the top 10 auction lots sold in that year.

The primary subject of Saville's works are the female nude and figuration, with the majority of all of Saville’s early works being the artist herself, and having almost exclusively painted female subjects since. Her works often "depict distorted, fleshy, and disquieting female bodies" to provoke the viewer. "I paint flesh because I'm human", she has said. "If you work in oil, as I do, it comes naturally. Flesh is just the most beautiful thing to paint." Saville seeks to break down the social conventions that encourage women to fit into limiting beauty standards, having expressed issues regarding the prevalence of generally accepted standards of beauty: "A lot of women [are] made to fear their own excess, taken in by the cult of exercise, the great quest to be thin. The rhetoric used against obesity makes it sound far worse than alcohol or smoking, yet they can do you far more damage". In this vein she has also looked at plastic surgery in her work, for example, in Plan (1993), which shows the marks made on a body before having liposuction done. Saville plays upon the "ambiguity of embodiment" and what it means to be "feminine" or "beautiful" through the use of the distortion and "disgust". Gallerist Asana Greenstreet commented that Saville performs "explorations of people that are both intimate and uncomfortable. Through detailed, frank and unapologetic investigations of the human body, dialogues occur between past and present, and are animated by questions of gender, suffering, and ambiguity." This "aesthetic of disgust" frequently pushes viewers to view and confront conceptions of women in Western society, giving some the autonomy to decide their own standard of beauty beyond this. Michelle Meagher writes that Saville sees standards of "beauty and pleasure [as] deeply embedded within Western [culture]", yet, she constantly tries to challenge these assumptions of the body and beauty. Scholars like Loren Erdrich argue there is a direct link between the physical body, identity, and the self presented within Saville's subjects. Suzie Mackenzie of The Guardian described Saville's work as frankly describing the disparity between the way women are perceived and the way that they feel about their bodies." After having children, Saville's subjects and methods opened up, though still revolve around the depiction of bodies. Her references expanded to include motherhood, art history, and ancient myth. Saville’s work has been read as directed against the fantasy that humans can be the complete authors of their lives.

• Year — Title — Venue — Location — Notes — Ref. • 1999 — Territories — Gagosian Gallery — New York • 2003 — Migrants • 2005 — Jenny Saville — Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Roma — Rome • 2010 — Jenny Saville: Reproduction Drawings — Gagosian Gallery — London — Works on paper • 2011 — Continuum — New York • 2012 — Jenny Saville — Norton Museum of Art — West Palm Beach, Florida — Part of Norton's RAW (Recognition of Art by Women) series • Jenny Saville — Modern Art Oxford — Oxford • 2014 — Oxyrhynchus — Gagosian Gallery — London • 2016 — Jenny Saville Drawing: A Contemporary Response to Drawing in Venice — Ashmolean Museum — Oxford — Drawings inspired by Titian to Canaletto: Drawing in Venice exhibition. • 2016 — Erota — Gagosian Gallery — London • 2018 — Ancestors — New York • Jenny Saville — George Economou Collection — Athens • 2020 — Elpis — Gagosian Gallery — New York • 2021 — Jenny Saville — Museo Novecento — Florence • Museo degli Innocenti • Museo di Casa Buonarroti • Museo di Palazzo Vecchio • Museo dell’Opera del Duomo • 2022 — Latent — Gagosian Gallery — Paris • 2023 — Ekkyklema — Gagosian Gallery — London • 2025 — Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting — National Portrait Gallery — London • Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth — Fort Worth, Texas • Jenny Saville: Gaze — Albertina Museum — Albertina, Vienna • 2026 — Jenny Saville a Ca’ Pesaro, 2026 Venice Biennale — International Gallery of Modern Art — Venice

• Year — Title — Venue — Location — Notes — Ref. • 1990 — Van Gogh Self Portrait Competition — Burrell Collection — Glasgow • Contemporary View 90 — Royal College of Art — London • BP Portrait Award Exhibition — National Portrait Gallery • 1991 • 1992 — RSA Students’ Exhibition 1992 — Royal Scottish Academy — Edinburgh • New Generation — Compass Gallery — Glasgow • Critics’ Choice — Cooling Gallery — London • 1994 — Young British Artists III — Saatchi Gallery • An American Passion: The Susan Kasen Summer and Robert D. Summer Collection of Contemporary British Painting — McLellan Galleries — Glasgow • Royal College of Art — London • 1995 — The Continuing Tradition: 75 Years of Painting — Glasgow School of Art — Glasgow • 1996 — Bad Blood — Glasgow Print Studio • Galleri Art-On — Halmstad, Sweden • Contemporary British Art '96 — Kalmar Konstmuseum — Stockholm • A Collaboration — Pace/McGill Gallery — New York — In collaboration with Glen Luchford • 1997 — Sensation — Royal Academy of Art — London • Hamburger Bahnhof — Berlin • Brooklyn Museum of Art — New York • From the Interior: Female Perspectives on Figuration — Ferens Gallery — Hull • Kingston University — London • Oldham Art Gallery — Oldham • Derby Art Gallery — Derby • University of Brighton Gallery — Brighton • Hot Bath Gallery — Bath • British Figurative Art. Part 1: the Human Figure — Flowers East Gallery — London • 1998 — Close Echoes—Public Bodies and Artificial Space — City Gallery — Prague • Kunsthalle Krems — Austria • Extensions: Aspects of the Figure — Joseloff Gallery, University of Hartford — Connecticut • The Ugly Show — Leeds Metropolitan University Gallery — Leeds • The Long Gallery, South Hill Park Arts Centre — Bracknell • 1999 — The Nude in Contemporary Art — Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art — Connecticut • 2000 — Solutus — Gallery Faurschou — Copenhagen • Painting the Century: 101 Masterpieces, 1900–2000 — National Portrait Gallery — London • Ant Noises — Saatchi Gallery • Ant Noises 2 • 2001 — Les volupté — Borusan Gallery — Istanbul • Narcissus — National Gallery of Scotland — Edinburgh • Great British Paintings from American Collections: Holbein to Hockne — Yale Center for British Art — New Haven, Connecticut • Naked since 1950 — C&M Arts — New York • 2002 — The Nude in 20th Century Art — Kunsthalle Emden — Emden • Closed Contact — Gagosian Gallery — Beverly Hills — In collaboration with Glen Luchford • The Physical World: An Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture — New York • Women — Eyestorm Gallery — London • Art, Age and Gender: Women Explore the Issue — Orleans House Gallery — Twickenham • Usher Gallery — Lincoln • New Greenham Arts — Newbury, Berkshire • 2003 — Pittura/Painting: From Rauschenberg to Murakami, 1964–2003, 50th Venice Biennale — Museo Correr — Venice • Witness: Theories of Seduction — Dorsky Gallery — Long Island City, New York • 2004 — Drawings — Gagosian Gallery — London • Galleon and Other Stories — Saatchi Gallery • Open House: Working in Brooklyn — Brooklyn Museum of Art — New York • SITE Sante Fe’s Fifth International Biennial: Disparities and Deformations: Our Grotesque — SITE — Santa Fe, New Mexico • Large Scale Polaroids by Jenny Saville and Glen Luchford — University of Massachusetts Amherst, East Gallery — Massachusetts • Summer Exhibition — Royal Academy of Arts — London • 2005 — The Figure In and Out of Space — Gagosian Gallery — New York • Il Male. Esercizi di Pittura Crudele — Pallazina di Caccia di Stupinigi — Turin • London Calling: Y(oung) B(ritish) A(rtists) criss-crossed — Kaare Berntsen Galleri — Oslo • Self-portraitBritish Art — National Portrait Gallery — London • Art Gallery of New South Wales — Sidney • 2006 — British Art — Thomas Gibson Fine Art — London • Damien Hirst, David Salle, Jenny Saville: The Bilotti Chapel — Museo Carlo Bilotti — Rome • ERETICA-L’arte contemporanea dalla trascedenza al profano — Palazzo di Sant’Anna — Palermo • RADAR: Selections from the Collection of Vicki and Kent Logan — Denver Art Museum — Denver, Colorado • 2007 — Berlinde de Bruyckere, Jenny Saville, Dan Flavin — Kunstmuseum Luzern — Lucerne • Insight? — Gagosian Gallery, Barvikha Luxury Village — Moscow • Summer Show — Gagosian Gallery — New York • 2009 — Paint Made Flesh — Frist Center for the Visual Arts — Nashville • The Phillips Collection — Washington DC • Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester — New York • 2010 — Crash: Homage to JG Ballard — Gagosian Gallery — London • Flesh — Galerie Sophie Scheidecker — Paris • 2011 — Gagosian Pop-Up! — Gagosian Gallery — London • Eroi — Galleria d’Arte Moderna — Turin • Summer Exhibition — Royal Academy of Arts — London • 2014 — Egon Schiele - Jenny Saville — Kunsthaus Zürich — Zürich • 2015 — Rubens and His Legacy: Van Dyck to Cézanne — Royal Academy of Arts — London • 2016 — Desire — Moore Building — Miami • Nude: From Modigliani to Currin — Gagosian Gallery — New York • Her Crowd: New Art by Women from Our Neighbors’ Private Collections — Bruce Museum — Greenwich, Connecticut • 2017 — From Life — Royal Academy of Arts — London • Drawing Together — Courtauld Gallery • 2018 — Bacon, Freud, and the School of London Painters — Hungarian National Gallery — Budapest • Now — Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art — Edinburgh — During the Edinburgh Art Festival • 2019 — The Aerodrome: An exhibition dedicated to the memory of Michael Stanley — Ikon Gallery — Birmingham • Visions of the Self: Rembrandt and Now — Gagosian Gallery — London • An Exhibition for Notre-Dame — Paris • 2020 — Bodyscapes — Israel Museum — Jerusalem • Butes de Femmes: Busts of Women: Paris 10th Anniversary Exhibition — Gagosian Gallery — Paris • Person of Interest — Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska — Lincoln, Nebraska • Portraying Pregnancy: From Holbein to Social Media — Foundling Museum — London • Inspiration: Iconic Works — National Museum — Stockholm • Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery — Finland • 2021 — Hi Woman! La notizia del futuro — Museo di Palazzo Pretorio — Prato • Hong Kong Exchange — Gagosian Gallery — Hong Kong • The Human Body — Hill Art Foundation — New York • 2022 — Haunted Realism — Gagosian Gallery — London • 2006 — Museo Carlo Billoti — Rome

Saville's paintings have appeared on two album covers: • 1994 – Strategy (South Face/Front Face/North Face) appeared on the cover of Manic Street Preachers' third album The Holy Bible. • 2009 – Stare (2005) was used for Manic Street Preacher's 2009 album Journal for Plague Lovers. UK supermarkets stocked the CD in a plain slipcase, after the cover was deemed "inappropriate". The band's James Dean Bradfield said the decision was "utterly bizarre and commented: "You can have lovely shiny buttocks and guns everywhere in the supermarket on covers of magazines and CDs, but you show a piece of art and people just freak out". The album cover art was placed second in a 2009 poll for Best Art Vinyl.

Saville lives and works in Oxford, UK.

Jenny Saville is recorded as painter and photographer.

Saville's work is in several public collections including: • The Broad, Los Angeles • The George Economou Collection, Athens • Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York • Morgan Library & Museum, New York • Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego • The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston • National Portrait Gallery, London • Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida • San Francisco Museum of Modern Art • Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh • Seattle Art Museum • Tate, London