Neil Jenney
Man and Challenge, 1969
Acrylic on canvas with painted wood frame, 59 ½ × 71 ⅜ inches (151.1 × 181.3 cm)
Neil Jenney
Admonition and Inexperience, 1969
Acrylic on canvas with painted wood frame, 58 ⅝ × 59 ¾ inches (148.9 × 151.8cm)
Neil Jenney
Birds and Jets, 1969
Acrylic on canvas with painted wood frame, 61 × 71 ¾ inches (154.9 × 182.2cm)
Neil Jenney
Brushed and Broomed, 1969
Acrylic and graphite on canvas with painted wood frame, 54 ½ × 52 ½ inches (138.4 × 133.4cm)
Neil Jenney
Here and There, 1969
Acrylic on canvas with painted wood frame, 58 ½ × 78 ½ inches (148.6 × 199.4cm)
Neil Jenney
Homogeneous Collection, 1969
Acrylic on canvas with painted wood frame, 58 ¼ × 136 ½ inches (148 × 346.7cm)
Gagosian is pleased to announce an exhibition of 1969–70 paintings by Neil Jenney. This is the artist’s first solo gallery exhibition in nearly twelve years, and will include over twenty-five paintings from this critical period in Jenney’s career.
Jenney’s unique style of realism developed in the late ’60s as a direct reaction to the minimalist and hyperrealist styles of the time. He aimed to create a new form of realism, where narrative truth was found in the simple relationships of objects. He paired landscape features, animals and figures, exploring such themes as technological progress, emotion, and survival. Jenney’s deceivingly simple imagery and textual juxtapositions convey the temporal coexistence of these objects in both the real and the imagined world.
Jenney paints in a manner described by Marcia Tucker in 1978 as “Bad Painting.” The elements are pared down to their most essential colors and forms. Green is landscape or grass, blue is sky or water, brown is wood flooring or dirt. All the paintings are composed by Jenney’s signature brushstrokes, graphic markings, and framed by his own painted wood frames.
A fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by Paul Gardner will be published on the occasion of the exhibition.
On the occasion of Neil Jenney: AMERICAN REALISM TODAY, the artist sat down with Gagosian curator Michael Cary to discuss paintings from Jenney’s recent series Modern Africa (2015–)—a subseries of the New Good Paintings (2015–)—and the preceding series, Good Paintings (1971–2015).
The Winter 2020 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Jenny Saville’s Prism (2020) on its cover.
The artist speaks with Douglas Dreishpoon about his career, his conception of the term “realism,” and why one must discover one’s own rules.
The Summer 2019 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring a detail from Afrylic by Ellen Gallagher on its cover.
Fred Hoffman explores the quiet stillness and Arcadian wonderment at the heart of Neil Jenney’s North American landscape paintings.
The Spring 2018 Gagosian Quarterly with a cover by Ed Ruscha is now available for order.
