Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1539744
they really push the commingling of figuration with abstraction to new heights. And yet, the charcoal drawings are just as important because they reveal Jenny's thinking and how she puzzles through things before a subject becomes a monumental work. While they show speed and experimentation, the canvases reveal the depth of her labor and her chops as a painter. PAO: You wrote an essay for the exhibition book comparing Saville to Willem de Kooning. What do you see as her legacy? AK: I think her legacy will be that she reinvented figurative painting. Like de Kooning, she expanded the language of paint — it's visceral, muscular, and emotional. And she gave us a new definition of humanness, which, in real time is complex and layered, not neat and idealized. I think future generations will look to her not just for technical mastery, but for that insistence on honesty. PAO: I heard you visited Saville's studio in Oxford. What was that like? A K : U n f o rg e t t a b l e . T h e re are books, images, materials, tools, drawings, and canvases everywhere, and upon arrival for my first visit, she was painting while blasting Taylor Swift! What really struck me was that Jenny nearly always thinks about painting — and her rigor. She pushes herself. You feel that intensity in the paintings. "Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting," October 12, 2025 – January 18, 2026, at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, themodern.org. "When you stand in front of a work by Jenny Saville, it's immersive. You experience it with your whole body." — Andrea Karnes, chief curator, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth Clockwise from top, all works by Jenny Saville, at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth: Latent, 2020-2022. Hyphen, 1999. Pietà I, 2019-2021. © JENNY SAVILLE. COURTESY THE GEORGE ECONOMOU COLLECTION. © JENNY SAVILLE. COURTESY THE GEORGE ECONOMOU COLLECTION. PRIVATE COLLECTION. © JENNY SAVILLE. COURTESY GAGOSIAN. 107