JENNY SAVILLE
Venice, Ca’ Pesaro – International Gallery of Modern Art
From 28 March to 22 November 2026
Curated by Elisabetta Barisoni
With the support of Gagosian
In the year of the Biennale Arte, the International Gallery of Modern Art at Ca’ Pesaro returns to contemporary voices with an extraordinary exhibition dedicated to one of the most important painters of our time, Jenny Saville. This is the first major exhibition of Saville’s work in Venice and aims to document the development of her work by tracing her career from her beginnings in the 1990’s to the present day.
The exhibition at Ca’ Pesaro presents Saville’s work through around 30 paintings, including many seminal works from the past few decades. Saville’s practice is deeply rooted in the history of painting and at Ca’ Pesaro her monumental canvases engage in dialogue with the great painters of the past in Venice, creating a unique encounter between contemporary painting and the city’s artistic heritage. Saville’s relationship with the masters of the past – particularly the Italians – centres on the strong connection she continues to maintain with the Venetian School of painting. The final room of the exhibition presents a previously unseen cycle of works created by the artist in homage to Venice for Ca’ Pesaro. The exhibition becomes a sublime celebrationof the strength and power of Saville’s love of and devotion to painting, while also serving as an intimate and grand tribute to the city of Venice – confirming the city’s role as a living centre of cultural innovation.
Born in 1970 in Cambridge, Saville attended the Glasgow School of Art from 1988 to 1992, spending a semester at the University of Cincinnati in 1991. Her figurative paintings developed to include contemporary debates surrounding the body with all their societal implications and taboos. It was also on this trip to America that she encountered the work of New York painters like Willem de Kooning and Cy Twombly. Alongside her dialogue with the old masters, ancient sculpture and modern European figurative painting, she became interested in the fundamentals of painting that abstract painters explored.
Generationally part of the group of painters and sculptors who made their mark between the late 1980s and early 1990s – often referred to as the Young British Artists (YBA’s), Saville revitalised contemporary figurative painting by re-engaging with the sensuousness of oil painting and its potential, raising questions about society’s perception of the body.
Admission to the exhibition from 28 March to 22 November 2026, with the Museum’s hours and ticket.
