Neil Jenney is a self-taught artist born on November 6, 1945 in Torrington,

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. He attended Massachusetts College of Art in 1964. In 1966 he moved to

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where he currently resides. His painting style was described by the art critic Marcia Tucker in 1978 as Bad Painting, a description which he has embraced. Jenney describes his style as

realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *Classical Realism *Literary realism, a move ...

, but it is an idiosyncratic use of the word on his part, meaning: a style in which narrative truths are found in the simple relationships of objects. His body of work during 1969–1970, which is the period for which he was first known, was a reaction to minimalism and photo-realism. The work's impact was large for such a brief period: according to

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art critic

Roberta Smith Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of ''The New York Times'' and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position. Early life Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawrence, Kansas. Smith studied a ...

"in those two years Mr. Jenney helped put representational painting on a new course and established precedents for the art of the 1970s, 80s and 90s." Often, Jenney's work of this period depicted pairs of objects which had evocative cause and effect relationships (such as a saw and a piece of cut wood, as are depicted in the 1969 piece ''Sawn and Saw''.) In an April 15, 2001 review in the New York Observer of his show of work from the late 60s and early 70s at Gagosian Gallery, Mario Naves said that the paintings:

"...aren't really bad at least not bad bad. That pejorative adjective, in Mr. Jenney's case, comes with
scare quotes Scare quotes (also called shudder quotes,Pinker, Steven. ''The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century''. Penguin (2014) sneer quotes, and quibble marks) are quotation marks that writers place around a word ...
a mile high and connotes an art that combines the dead-end figuration of Pop, the dead-end materiality of Minimalism and a sense of humor that is, if not dead-end, then sharply deadpan. Mr. Jenney painted the pictures during the heyday of
Conceptual Art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...
, and if they were, in part, a rebuff to its disembodied verities, they also partook of its intellectual detachment."

His painting ''Here and There'' (1969), which depicts a white fence dividing a field of drippy, green brushstrokes, was in the 2004 exhibition ''The Undiscovered Country'' at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. His work is in many museums including the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

, and the

Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...

in Washington D.C. He currently shows with the Barbara Mathes Gallery. His painting "Meltdown Morning" is on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Sources

* Ausstellungskatalog: ''documenta 5. Befragung der Realität – Bildwelten heute''; Katalog (als Aktenordner) Band 1: (Material); Band 2: (Exponatliste); Kassel 1972 * documenta Archiv (Hrsg.); ''Wiedervorlage d5 – Eine Befragung des Archivs zur documenta 1972''; Kassel/Ostfildern 2001, {{DEFAULTSORT:Jenney, Neil 1945 births Living people Massachusetts College of Art and Design alumni Painters from New York City 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male artists 20th-century American male artists