WHAT? Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting
WHERE? National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, London WC2H 0HE
WHEN? Now until 7th September
WHY GO? For a short sharp shock to the senses. This powerful exhibition will leave visitors reeling. No one can accuse Saville of being minimal; her portraits create maximum impact for their honesty and realism. Since graduating from Glasgow School of Art in 1922, where she created a stir for her naked self-portrait, Propped, which sits centre stage in this high-octane exhibition, she has gone from strength to strength as this major retrospective reveals.
Such was Saville’s impact on the art world at an early age, that Propped subsequently sold at Sotheby’s in 2018 for the record sum of $12.4 million.
What is it that makes Saville stand out? Her figurative work tells it like it is, from curvaceous nudes with lumps and bumps, to faces that show real anguish with reddish skin and purple bruises. Nothing is disguised. There’s the controversial painting of a boy with a bloodied face on the Manic Street Preachers album cover that was banned from supermarkets. It was considered too disturbing.
Even Saville’s more tender motherly moments provoke controversy. She celebrates pregnancy and birth, but far from the conventional chocolate box imagery, her motherly bonding reveals a stark reality no mother likes to admit.
Anatomy is the key word. Saville’s challenging charcoal drawings and thick layered oil paintings are imbued with passion and portray real life people. Comparisons to Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud are inevitable, but she really is her own woman, and is not afraid to assert herself as such.

IN THE KNOW: Inspired? Join the two-day Weekend Workshop: Jenny Saville Painting Portraits with artist Kim Scouller who will show beginners how to bravely smear and distort with layers of thick paint in the style of this inspiring artist. (12th-13th July, details online)