Listen to me carefully, you bunch of snobs. It’s been fifty years since Neil Jenney has been taunting us with his fierce independence, his refusal of fashions, and his singular vision of American art. It’s high time we give him the attention he deserves. This American artist, born in 1945 in Torrington, Connecticut, remains one of the most misunderstood of our time, a painter who has navigated between minimalism, expressionism, and realism with insolent audacity.
Jenney emerged on the New York art scene in 1966, armed with a clear vision and a healthy disregard for dominant trends. It was a time when minimalism and conceptual art reigned supreme, when painting figuratively would get you relegated to the dustbin of art history. But Jenney couldn’t care less. With calculated insolence, he developed what he himself called “realism,” a term he defined as “a style in which the narrative truths are found in the simple relationships between objects” [1]. This was not realism in the traditional sense, but a conceptual approach to figuration, an exploration of the links between objects rather than the objects themselves.
In 1969-1970, Jenney created a series of works that critic Marcia Tucker would later describe as “Bad Painting” (bad painting), a term he eventually adopted with some pride. In these paintings, he deliberately juxtaposes two elements in a cause-and-effect relationship, a saw and a piece of cut wood, an accident and an argument, a barrier and a field, to create what critic David Joselit would later call a “relational realism” [2]. This approach directly contradicted the photorealism that was in vogue at the time, which Jenney considered “an outdated idea, just pretty” [3].
What makes Neil Jenney strong is his ability to merge the conceptual and the narrative in a painting that is never didactic. Like some great American poets have done in literature, Jenney has created a visual language rooted in the American vernacular while pushing it towards the universal. The writer Wallace Stevens, in his collection “Harmonium” (1923), already explored this tension between the real and the imaginary, between the ordinary and the transcendent. “Poetry is violence done to the ordinary environment,” wrote Stevens, an idea found in Jenney’s work when he transforms mundane scenes into profound comments on our relationship with the world [4].
Jenney’s paintings do not tell complete stories but suggest situations, relationships, tensions. He offers resistance to easy interpretation, much like the poet Charles Olson who stated: “A poem is energy transferred from where the poet got it” [5]. This conception of art as a transfer of energy rather than mere representation is at the heart of Jenney’s approach. In his “Bad Paintings,” the energy comes from the relationships between objects, from the narrative tension they create together.
But Jenney did not stop there. Towards the end of the 1970s, he made a U-turn and started painting what he ironically called his “Good Paintings”: meticulously rendered landscapes, with thick black frames bearing stenciled titles. These paintings, such as “North America Divided” (1992-1999) or “North America Acidified” (1985-1986/2012-2013), combine a refined pictorial technique with an evident environmental concern. Critic Fred Hoffman notes that these works “capture something we know is there but do not see” [6].
These landscapes are not mere representations of nature but comments on our relationship with the environment, on pollution, militarism, and other ecological threats. They are part of the tradition of utopian and visionary architecture, not by imagining impossible structures, but by representing the natural environment in a way that reveals both its beauty and its fragility.
The architect Louis Kahn, known for his monumental structures and his search for essential light, shared with Jenney this quest for a fundamental truth. Kahn wrote: “A great building begins with the unmeasurable, goes through measurable means at the time of design, and at the end must be unmeasurable” [7]. Similarly, Jenney’s landscapes begin with a meticulous observation of nature, go through a precise pictorial technique, to ultimately transcend mere representation and reach an almost spiritual dimension.
The massive black frames that Jenney designed for his paintings are not mere decorative accessories but integral elements of the work. As he explains himself: “When we talk about looking through a window, the frame is like the architectural foreground. It is here with you and presents the work. It is functional, rather than merely decorative” [8]. These frames establish a clear distinction between our space and that of the painting, while serving as a portal to this other reality.
This approach recalls the principles of extraction and isolation found in sacred architecture. Greek temples, for example, used their peristyle not only as a structural element but also as a transitional zone between the outer profane world and the inner sacred space. Similarly, Jenney’s frames create a transition between our reality and that of his meticulously rendered landscapes.
In his more recent works, notably the “Modern Africa” series (2015-2021), Jenney explores the tension between civilization and nature. These large paintings depict fragments of ancient architectures partially buried in the sand, broken columns, sculpted heads emerging from dunes. “It’s all about civilization and Mother Nature. It’s as simple as that,” he explains [9]. These images are timeless; they could have existed a thousand years ago or a thousand years from now.
The artist continues his reflection on the interaction between man and his environment but from a different angle. If the “North America” series dealt with human aggressions against nature, the “Modern Africa” series shows how nature reclaims its rights over human creations. This eternal cycle evokes the cyclical conception of time found in many African cultures, where past, present, and future are perceived as interconnected rather than linear.
Jenney’s painterly technique has also evolved with this series. He explains: “When I moved to the ‘Good Paintings,’ I essentially tried to hide the brushstrokes as much as possible. With ‘Modern Africa,’ I said: ‘I want to go back, but I don’t want it to be like the ‘Bad Paintings,’ just neglected.’ I wanted to make these brushstrokes more apparent, but really organized and refined” [10]. This technical evolution reflects a maturation of his thought, a search for balance between expression and control.
One of Jenney’s strengths lies in his ability to transform the ordinary into the strange, the banal into disorientation, as Joselit points out. His landscapes provoke what T.S. Eliot called in “Burnt Norton” (1935) “the still point of the turning world” [11], a moment of suspension where time seems to stop. The viewer is invited to contemplate not only the beauty of nature but also its temporality, its vulnerability in the face of human actions.
This suspension of time is particularly evident in “North America Depicted” (2009-2010), an almost entirely white painting depicting snow-covered rocks. As Hoffman observes, “while the eye is generally invited to move through the painting, the work conveys immobility. More than a mere representation of something figurative, it suggests a suspension of time” [12].
The coherence of Jenney’s approach over the past fifty years is admirable. From the young rebel of the 1960s who rejected dominant trends to the mature painter exploring the relationships between man and nature, he has always followed his own path, indifferent to fashions and the expectations of the art market. As he says with his characteristic humor: “People ask me why I make art. I tell them it’s to have something to sell. You can’t be an art dealer without the art” [13].
This fierce independence has earned him late but solid recognition. His works are now part of the collections of prestigious museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. The Gagosian Gallery, one of the most influential in the world, now represents his work, a sign that the artistic establishment has finally recognized his importance.
Neil Jenney reminds us that true art does not follow trends but creates them. He shows us that painting can be both conceptual and emotional, technical and expressive, local and universal. In an artistic world often dominated by effect and spectacle, his work offers us a deeper and more lasting experience, an invitation to reconsider our relationship with the world and with ourselves.
What makes Jenney’s art so relevant today is its ability to make us see the world differently, to transform our perception of reality. As Kahn wrote: “Architecture does not exist. What exists is the work of architecture” [14]. Similarly, for Jenney, what matters is not “art” as an abstract concept, but the concrete work and its impact on the viewer. And believe me, that impact is considerable.
- Tucker, Marcia. “Bad Painting,” exhibition catalog. New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, 1978.
- Joselit, David. “Neil Jenney’s Realism,” in “Neil Jenney: Natural Rationalism,” Whitney Museum of American Art, 1994.
- Jenney, Neil. Interview in “The New York Observer,” January 20, 2016.
- Stevens, Wallace. “Adagia,” in “Opus Posthumous,” Knopf, 1957.
- Olson, Charles. “Projective Verse,” in “Selected Writings,” New Directions, 1966.
- Hoffman, Fred. “Neil Jenney: Nature Surveyor,” Gagosian Quarterly, February 28, 2018.
- Kahn, Louis I. “Louis I. Kahn: Writings, Lectures, Interviews,” edited by Alessandra Latour, Rizzoli, 1991.
- Jenney, Neil. Interview with Jason Rosenfeld, “The Brooklyn Rail,” December 2021.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Eliot, T.S. “Burnt Norton,” in “Four Quartets,” Harcourt, 1971.
- Hoffman, Fred. op. cit.
- Jenney, Neil. Interview with Jason Rosenfeld, op. cit.
- Kahn, Louis I. op. cit.
