Paul Jenkins

Biography of Paul Jenkins

Paul JENKINS was born in 1923 in Missouri.

Already artistically inclined during his adolescence (working in a ceramic factory), he set off for New York at the age of twenty-five to live for and from his passion: painting.

There, he forged student friendships with those who would become the two sacred monsters of post-war American abstraction: Pollock and Rothko.

Between a deep knowledge of art history and a passion for the instinctive act that is his relationship with painting, he found his path, mystical and philosophical, full of lights and shimmering colors.

It was in Paris, where he settled in 1953, that his first solo exhibition was organized.

For a long time, he divided his time and work between the French capital (where his friends were Dubuffet and Pierre Restany) and New York, creating in these two energetic cities paintings where the pleasure of painting shines through in every hue, in every shade and transparency, in every movement.

(c) Natacha PELLETIER for PASSION ESTAMPES