“The vocabulary of painting is all in this picture.” —Jenny Saville
Jenny Saville is one of the most talented painters of her generation. But where did she learn to paint? Apparently, from Rembrandt.
Gagosian Grosvenor Hill just closed a truly remarkable exhibition, Visions of the Self: Rembrandt and Now, which featured nearly two dozen self-portraits by artists ranging from Picasso to Robert Mapplethorpe to Urs Fischer, alongside Rembrandt’s c. 1665 masterpiece Self Portrait with Two Circles. Although part of a new partnership that sees Gagosian lending support to the National Trust (which owns the Rembrandt), we’re not quite certain if this exhibition shows more the charity of Gagosian or the pull.
Also featured in the exhibition is a new self-portrait by Jenny Saville, responding specifically to the Rembrandt selfie. In this video from Gagosian Quarterly, Saville talks about what she learned from Rembrandt, and the influence his painting has had on 350 years of painters.