Paul Jenkins Biography
Paul Jenkins was born in America, in Kansas City, Missouri in 1923. As a teenager, he worked in a ceramic factory where he learned a lot about colour. Determined to become an artist, he moved to New York in 1948 and enrolled in the Art Students League, where he met professors Yasuo Kuniyoshi and Morris Kantor, both important to his education. Initially associated with abstract expressionism, Jenkins soon gave a metaphysical twist to his research, a twist that remained dominant in his work. Progressively the act of painting will become an intuitive, almost mystical process for the artist. During his years of study in New York he was close to Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. The artist immerses himself in Gurjieff's esoteric philosophy. In '51 he painted his first work with the "dripping" technique (a painting technique that consists of dripping color onto the canvas spread out on the floor). In '51 he travels to Europe, visits Italy and Spain and in '53 he settles in Paris. He bonds with Dubuffet, Tobey, Pierre Restany and Michel Tapié. His first solo exhibition took place in Paris in 1954. For a long time Jenkins alternated between his atelier in Paris and that of New York. Energy characterizes his art, an art in which light waves and thick layers of paint flood the eye with color, an art in which opacity and transparencies mix. Through his work the artist proposes his own redefinition of color, light and space on the surface of the canvas. The artist loves to respect the purity of colors. His work is present in the largest museums in the world. Jenkins will create monumental sets for the Paris Opéra. If Jenkins' technique may appear unorthodox, he can nevertheless be defined as a "traditional artist". He works canvases and paper with acrylic. At the end of the 1980s, Jenkins received various public orders in various parts of the world; in this period he also created an important set of lithographs. His work is frequently exhibited; He still lives between Paris and New York. The artist passed away in 2012.
