Jenny Saville is one of the most celebrated British painters of her generation, acclaimed for her monumental canvases that confront and redefine traditional representations of the human body.
Born in Cambridge in 1970, she studied at the Glasgow School of Art between 1988 and 1992, where her large-scale figurative works quickly drew critical attention. Her reputation was cemented in the early 1990s when Charles Saatchi commissioned an ambitious series of paintings, leading to her inclusion in the landmark Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1997 alongside fellow Young British Artists.
Saville’s practice is defined by her visceral engagement with flesh, form, and scale. Working primarily in oil, she layers paint to explore corporeality with both unflinching realism and expressive abstraction. Her subjects often grapple with themes of identity, gender, and the lived experience of the body, challenging historical ideals of beauty and portraiture. From her early works that magnified female flesh in bold, uncompromising detail, to her later explorations of motherhood, intimacy, and the body in motion, Saville’s paintings command both critical and public attention.
Today, Jenny Saville’s works are held in major international collections, including Tate, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art. She has exhibited globally, with solo shows in London, New York, and beyond, and in 2018 was elected a Royal Academician. Recognised as one of the most influential painters working today, Saville continues to expand the possibilities of contemporary figurative painting, her canvases both celebrating and interrogating the complexities of human existence.
