School of Art

Contact Details

School of Art
Aberystwyth University
Buarth Mawr
Aberystwyth
Ceredigion
SY23 1NG

Tel: +44 (0)1970 622460

Fax: +44 (0)1970 622461

Email: artschool@aber.ac.uk


Display artist/maker:

Paul Jenkins

Born: 1923, USA, Missouri, Kansas City   Died: 2012, USA, New York

Painter and printmaker. The son of an estate agent, Jenkins was brought up in Kansas and, when his parents divorced, Ohio. He initially studied at Kansas City Art Institute, 1938-41, and served an apprenticeship in a ceramics factory. In Kansas he regularly visited the Nelson-Atkins Museum being particularly fascinated with the museum's Native American and Asian collections. As a young man he met Frank Lloyd Wright and Thomas Hart Benton. War service followed with the US Naval Air Corps but he continued to develop his interest in Asian art and Taoist thought. After his military service he studied art under Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1893-1953) at the Art Students League in New York, 1948-52. During this period he met Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman but his developing abstract style was more akin to the work of Morris Louis and Helen Frankenthaler. In 1953 he travelled to Europe and settled in Paris where he established a studio. Though he made important contacts with European galleries he remained extremely loyal to the American gallery owner Martha Jackson who gave him his first US solo show in 1956. In the following years he lived in both Paris and New York. His vibrantly coloured abstracts were usually created by controlled paint pouring methods in both acrylic and watercolour. He refrained from the fashion for staining unprimed canvas instead wishing his paintings to stand the test of time. A deeply spiritual man, his painting was informed by his knowledge of Eastern religions and philosophy.

Objects in the collections associated with this artist/maker

Phenomena near Calais WD102 WaterColourOrDrawings




 
Gweinyddu