The Wick List

Viewing Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting at The National Portrait Gallery

The Wick Culture - Jenny Saville, Drift, 2020-2022, Private Collection. Courtesy of Gagosian and Jenny Saville

Above Jenny Saville, Drift, 2020-2022, Private Collection. Courtesy of Gagosian and Jenny Saville

The Wick Culture - Jenny Saville, Compass, 2013, Private collection. Courtesy of Jenny Saville and Gagosian

Above Jenny Saville, Compass, 2013, Private collection. Courtesy of Jenny Saville and Gagosian

The Wick Culture - Jenny Saville, Chasah, 2020, Private Collection. Courtesy of Gagosian and Jenny Saville

Above Jenny Saville, Chasah, 2020, Private Collection. Courtesy of Gagosian and Jenny Saville

The Wick Culture - Jenny Saville, Aleppo, 2017-2018, Collection of the artist. Courtesy of Jenny Saville and NGS

Above Jenny Saville, Aleppo, 2017-2018, Collection of the artist. Courtesy of Jenny Saville and NGS

The Wick Culture - Jenny Saville, Reverse, 2002-2003, Private Collection. Courtesy of Gagosian and Jenny Saville

Above Jenny Saville, Reverse, 2002-2003, Private Collection. Courtesy of Gagosian and Jenny Saville

The Wick Culture - Jenny Saville, Propped, 1992, Private Collection. Courtesy of Jenny Saville and Gagosian

Above Jenny Saville, Propped, 1992, Private Collection. Courtesy of Jenny Saville and Gagosian

Above Jenny Saville, Drift, 2020-2022, Private Collection. Courtesy of Gagosian and Jenny Saville

Above Jenny Saville, Compass, 2013, Private collection. Courtesy of Jenny Saville and Gagosian

Above Jenny Saville, Chasah, 2020, Private Collection. Courtesy of Gagosian and Jenny Saville

Above Jenny Saville, Aleppo, 2017-2018, Collection of the artist. Courtesy of Jenny Saville and NGS

Above Jenny Saville, Reverse, 2002-2003, Private Collection. Courtesy of Gagosian and Jenny Saville

Above Jenny Saville, Propped, 1992, Private Collection. Courtesy of Jenny Saville and Gagosian

Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting

National Portrait Gallery
20 June – 7 September 2025

The summer blockbuster you’ve been waiting for is at last here: Jenny Saville’s epic solo show The Anatomy of Painting is unveiled to the public at the National Portrait Gallery from tomorrow. It is the British painter’s largest ever museum exhibition in the UK (including 45 works) and cements her status as one of the world’s most significant painters working today.

Saville’s career goes back to the 1990s, when she already won acclaim for her 1992 degree show at Glasgow School of Art – a series of monumental-scale, visceral and charged female nudes that ruptured the genre and catapulted Saville into the limelight. Since then, Saville has continued to revolutionize the genre and how we look at bodies in her paintings and charcoal works.

This display unfolds chronology charting the evolution of her work but the continued and consistent passion for her process and subject matter, unwavering and increasingly masterful. Saville has a unique ability to completely floor the viewer with the familiar, questioning ideas of beauty – especially for women – and in a push-pull dialogue with the history of art. The curation was organised in close coordination with Saville herself and gives an unprecedented insight into her way of thinking, working, and seeing. An unmissable show.