JENNY SAVILLE

Early Years

Jenny Saville was born in Cambridge in 1970, one of four children. Her mother was a primary school teacher and her father a county council director of education. The family often moved house—in 2005, Saville spoke about “carrying images around” with her as a constant in a regularly changing life and how having the same bedroom for her entire childhood would have been “magical”. Frequently arriving in new schools, she learned to observe the body language of other pupils to identify friends. She also remembers sitting on the floor watching her piano teacher: “From below she had these big, thick thighs, a thick tweed skirt and tights, and I’d spend the whole time looking at the way her thighs never parted and how the flesh would rub against the tights.” During her formative years, she also went on art trips with her uncle, including to Venice. In 1988 she enrolled at Glasgow School of Art, supporting herself by waitressing. She spent a term at the University of Cincinnati in 1991, and on a later trip to Connecticut in 1994 she was able to observe a New York City plastic surgeon at work. Saville was catapulted to fame when Charles Saatchi bought her degree collection in 1992.

Jenny Saville: Artworks

Saville’s paintings and charcoal drawings observe the movements of flesh and challenge traditional perceptions of “beauty”. Her subjects range from herself to bodies challenging gender heteronormativity and mothers with children. Saville’s work builds on an exploration of the fundamentals of painting, as well as her study of classical and Renaissance sculpture.

• Branded (1992), is one of the early paintings that convinced Charles Saatchi to invest in Saville as an emerging artist. The painting questions notions of identity and femininity, while the foreshortened torso immediately reframes traditional portrayals of the female nude. The huge size of the piece belies its intimacy: blue-veined flesh and well-executed brushstrokes demand close attention, while stepping back from the canvas presents a different view.
• The Mothers (2011) is a powerful image of a mother holding two children—this isn’t a twee portrait but instead a visceral portrayal of a realistic woman. On top of the oil on canvas, Saville has drawn in charcoal, outlines of children evoking the constant motion of motherhood.
• Prism (2020) is a pastel portrait that Saville built up by drawing many heads, beginning with charcoal renderings. Her framer sent a canvas that didn’t have enough glue to paint on, so she tried pastels instead, using vivid colours from a set based on Monet’s garden.

Jenny Saville: Select Exhibitions

Select Solo Exhibitions

• Jenny Saville a Ca’ Pesaro, Ca’ Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art, Venice (2026)
• Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting, National Portrait Gallery, London (2025) (and touring)
• Jenny Saville: Gaze, Albertina, Vienna (2025)
• Jenny Saville: Ekkyklema, Gagosian, London (2023)
• Jenny Saville: Latent, Gagosian, Paris (2022)
• Jenny Savile: Elpis, Gagosian, New York City (2020)
• Jenny Saville: Ancestors, Gagosian, New York City (2018)
• Now: Jenny Saville, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2018)
• Jenny Saville: Erota, Gagosian Gallery, London (2016)
• Jenny Saville Drawing: A Contemporary Response to Drawing in Venice, Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford (2015)
• Jenny Saville, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach (2011) (and travelling)
• Jenny Saville, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma (2005)
• Jenny Saville: Territories, Gagosian Gallery, New York City (1999)

Select Group Exhibitions

• Auras: Portraits of Women by British Artists, Lévy Gorvy Dayan, London (2025)
• The Human Body, Hill Art Foundation, New York City (2021)
• Portraying Pregnancy: From Holbein to Social Media, Foundling Museum, London (2020)
• All Too Human: Bacon, Freud and a Century of Painting Life, Tate Britain, London (2018)
• Flesh, Galerie Sophie Scheidecker, Paris (2010)
• Large Scale Polaroids by Jenny Saville and Glen Luchford, University of Massachusetts (2004)
• Closed Contact: Jenny Saville, Glen Luchford, Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills (2002)
• Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection, Royal Academy of Arts, London (1997) (and touring)
• Jenny Saville and Glen Luchford, Pace Wildenstein MacGill_, New York City (1996)
• Young British Artists III, Saatchi Gallery, London (1994)
• RSA Students’ Exhibition 1992, Royal Scottish Academy (1992)

Further Reading

• Artist profile page at Gagosian
• Jenny Saville’s Instagram
• 2025 profile in The New Yorker
• 2026 interview from _Gagosian Quarterly

Jenny Saville FAQs

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