biography

Neil Jenney, born 1945 in Torrington, Connecticut, is an american contemporary painter and representative of the New Realism. Notorious for his bad paintings As an artist he is mostly self-taught, he attended the Massachusetts College of Art in 1964 and moved to New York later in 1966, where he has lived and worked ever since. Jenney himself describes his style as realistic, but in an idiosyncratic use of the word, meaning: a style in which stories find truth in a simple relationship of objects. His paintings tell little nasty or funny stories. Stories that take place in the mind of the viewer when he sees them and relates the persons or objects depicted to each other. Jenney sees his work that represent a naive and realistic style as a reaction against the Minimalism and Pop Art movement that had dominated the art world in the 1960s.

 

His works were shown at various institutions including The Museum of Modern Art (New York), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), The Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), The Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington), The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles) and The Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles).

 

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2023

Neil Jenney: Bad Paintings, Tobias Mueller Modern Art, Zurich

 

2018

Neil Jenney: American Realist. New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain

 

2017

Neil Jenney: Drawings & Paintings, Gagosian Gallery, New York

 

2014

Neil Jenney, Hall Art Foundation, Reading

 

2013

Works of the Jenney Archive, Gagosian Gallery, New York

 

2007

Neil Jenney: North America, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield

 

2001

Neil Jenney: The Bad Years 1967-70, Gagosian Gallery, New York

 

1994

Collection in Context – Neil Jenney: Natural Rationalism, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

 

1981

Neil Jenney: Paintings and Sculpture 1967-1980, University of California Art Museum, Berkeley

Neil Jenney, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston

Neil Jenney, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

Neil Jenney, Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek

Neil Jenney, Kunsthalle, Basel