Jenkins, Paul (artist)

Born July 12, 1923 in Kansas City, Missouri, where he grew up.

In his youth, he met Frank Wright , who was commissioned by Paul's cousin, Rev. Barris Jenkins, who was rebuilding a church in Kansas City after a fire. But Wright suggested that Paul Jenkins think of something else, not art. Also in his younger years, Paul met with Thomas Garth Benton and also shared his intention to become an artist. A strong influence on him had a collection of works of art from , which at that time was called William Rockhill Nelson Art Gallery . ^[6]

He later moved to Struthers , Ohio to live with his mother, Nadyne Herrick, and his stepfather, who together ran the local Struthers Journal (now the Hometown Journal ). After leaving school, Paul served in the US Maritime Service and then during the Second World War was in the US Naval Aviation Corps. After the war ended, in 1948 he moved to New York, where, on the basis of the he studied for four years in the New York Art Students League with Yasuo Kuniyoshi and . During this time, he met Mark Rothko , Jackson Pollock , Lee Krasner and Barnett Newman . In 1953, Jenkins went to Europe: after working for three months in Taormina in Sicily , he settled in Paris . Since 1955, the artist divided his time between New York and Paris . ^[7]

His first Paris solo exhibition was held in 1954 in the studio of , which was widely known for showing the work of abstract artists of the time. Jenkins' first solo exhibition in the United States also took place in 1954 at the groundbreaking gallery in Seattle . The next solo exhibition was held in New York in 1956 at the Martha Jackson Gallery , the leading gallery of the time. From this exhibition, the Whitney Museum of American Art acquired Jenkins ' painting "Divining Rod . " In the 1950s, Jenkins gained fame both in New York and in Europe thanks to his early abstraction. At an exhibition by the Gutai group at the Martha Jackson Gallery in 1958, Jiro Yoshihara invited Paul Jenkins to work with Gutai in Osaka ; however, Jenkins delayed the implementation of this proposal until 1964. In the artist’s Paris studio in 1959, Peggy Guggenheim acquired the oil painting Osage , subsequently continuing to collect the artist’s works. During this period of time, Jenkins, who was considered an abstract expressionist, sometimes called himself an "abstract phenomenist."

Gradually, in the 1960s, the artist switched from oil to acrylic. Over the course of this decade, his work has been shown around the world - in major galleries and museums in Tokyo, London, New York, Paris, Amsterdam and other places. In 1963, he became the owner of the loft (upper floor of the house) of Willem de Kooning at Union Square in New York, where he worked until the end of 2000. In 1964, Jenkins went to Tokyo for his exhibit at the Tokyo Gallery and worked with the Gutai group in Osaka. These works of Jenkins will later be shown at the 2009 exhibition, which was supervised by Ming Tiampo ^[8] at the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center , and then at the Harold B. Lemmerman Gallery at New Jersey City University . In 2010, this exhibition went to the UB Anderson Gallery of the University of New York at Buffalo . In 1968, Paul Jenkins created a limited number of unique glass sculptures from Egidio Costantini ^[9] in Murano . Some of these works were shown in 2007 at the Viva Vetro! Glass Alive! Venice and America, 1950-2006 . ^[ten]

It should be noted that the sculpture was present in the artist’s works in the 1950s, again showing his worth in the 1970s. In 1971, at the invitation of Philip Pavia to attend the Sculpture Symposium at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York, Paul Jenkins carves a 2-ton piece of French limestone, which is currently in the collection of the Hofstra Museum Sculpture Garden in Hempstead, New York. In this decade, the artist also created the first Meditation Mandala work for a park sculpture project. It was cast in bronze along with subsequent sculptures by Shakti Samothrace , Excalibur and Echo Chamber . ^{[11] [12]} In this period of time, collages begin to appear - a little-known aspect of the artist’s work, up to this point practically unknown. In 1971–1972, a retrospective of Jenkins' works on canvas, organized by Gerald Nordland ^[13] and , was held at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art . And the Washington gallery Corcoran initiated an exhibition of his watercolors, which traveled throughout the United States for two years. In 1977, Jenkins worked in watercolors in the Caribbean and gained great fame when his paintings appeared in the film " Single Woman " by Paul Mazursky , nominated for an Oscar in 1978 (the film shows a pensive and bearded British abstract artist, played by actor Alan Bates ) During his stay in the Caribbean, an impasto begins to appear in the artist’s works, which is especially evident in his work “Phenomena Forcing a Passage at the Mark” .

In the 1980s, while continuing to work with acrylic and watercolors, Paul Jenkins began creating steel Meditation Mandala sculptures, cast at a factory in Tesuque , New Mexico , which were installed in the sculpture garden of the Hofstra University Museum . At the same factory, he cast a unique bronze sculpture “Four Corners” . In 1987, at the initiative of Paris Opera staged the dance drama "Shaman to the Prism Seen" , which used the passage of light through a prism, as well as the scenery created by Paul Jenkins. During these years, during the preparation of his monograph Anatomy of a Cloud , he created collages in honor of the French theater director and actor Jean-Louis Barrot ; collages were on display at the French Embassy in New York. American theater director introduces Anatomy of a Cloud for study at his acting studio at the University of California, San Diego . For "Anatomy of a Cloud" , published in New York in 1983, the artist received a silver medal from the club Art Directors Club of New York .

In 1990, at the invitation of Abba Evan, Jenkins went to Israel, the next year he visited France, Italy and Japan. In Paris, he created a series of original lithographs on stone called Seven Aspects of Amadeus and the Others . In 1991, Jenkins ' Conjunctions and Annexes was shown in New York at the Gimpel Weitzenhoffer Gallery , and a book of the same name was published. In 1994, in Angers, PACA ^[14] organized an exhibition of his watercolors L'Eau et la Couleur , which for two years traveled throughout France. In 1999, the Hofstra University Museum hosted an exhibition of the artist’s works on canvas in New York and Paris between 1954-1960.

In the 21st century, Paul Jenkins continued to work and exhibit. In 2000, in Ohio organized an exhibition of Jenkins' works on Water and Color . In 2003, he exhibited at the Redfern Gallery in London . In 2005, he created special works on canvas “New York for As Above So Below” for a temporary exhibition in French abbeys: Silvacan and the Cistercian abbey of the XXII century in La Roque d'Anteron . In 2005, the Дuvres Majeures , an exhibition of his works in oil and watercolor, was shown at the Palace of Fine Arts in Lille.

In 2007, 2008 and 2009, Jenkins transferred about 5,000 documents from his archive to the Smithsonian Institution's .

One of the last exhibitions of Paul Jenkins took place in 2010 in the new Crocker Art Museum building, which was called "Paul Jenkins: The Color of Light" - it featured 50 watercolors, including large-scale ones, created in connection with his dance and drama performance at the Paris Opera, as well as several selected paintings on canvas.

Died June 9, 2012 in Manhattan in New York. ^{[15] [16]}

• Cassou, Jean. Jenkins Published by Harry N. Abrams, 1963. OCLC 576470
• Bonafoux, Pascal. Paul Jenkins: Conjunctions and Annexes. Editions Galilée, Paris, 1991. OCLC 24730696
• Trapp, Frank Anderson. Paul Jenkins: Water and Color. 1994. OCLC 32654407

• Official site
• Paul jenkins artist
• Paul Jenkins - 86 paintings