Paul Jenkins

PAUL JENKINS (1923, Kansas City, Missouri – New York, 2012).
“Phenomena Sung Jade,” 1978.
Watercolor on paper.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 75 x 56 cm.
“Phenomena Sung Jade” belongs to the renowned “Phenomena” series, a cornerstone of Paul Jenkins’s body of work and one of the most distinctive expressions of American lyrical abstraction in the second half of the 20th century. In these works, the artist conceived of painting as a chromatic event in which pigment took center stage. Jenkins poured and guided the paint directly onto the surface, using palette knives and other tools to control its flow and encourage the emergence of transparencies, overlays, and accidental effects. In this way, he established a unique balance between control and unpredictability, allowing the material’s own behavior to contribute to the construction of the image.
The term “Phenomena,” systematically incorporated into his titles since the 1960s, expresses this conception of painting as a perceptual experience. His compositions did not seek to represent a specific landscape, but rather to evoke sensations associated with natural phenomena—light, water, the atmosphere, or minerals—through the movement and interaction of color. In this context, the title *Sung Jade* is particularly evocative. The reference to jade connects to Jenkins’ fascination with Eastern art and philosophy—present since his youth—and to his interest in intuitive and contemplative painting.
A renowned Abstract Expressionist painter, Paul Jenkins studied with Yasuo Kuniyoshi at the Art Students League of New York (1948–1952) and met Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Barnett Newman. In 1954, after traveling to Italy, he moved to Paris, where his first solo exhibition took place at the Studio Paul Facchetti. The following year, in 1955, the Zoe Dusanne Gallery in Seattle presented his first solo exhibition in the United States; the Seattle Museum was the first museum to acquire his work. In 1959, he began titling his canvases “Phenomena,” and gradually shifted from oil and enamel to acrylic. During the 1960s, he traveled throughout Europe, Russia, India, and Japan, where he worked with Yoshihara and the Gutai group in Osaka. In 1983, he was named Commandeur des Arts et Lettres of the French Republic. Considered one of the most important artists of the 20th century, his works are found in the collections of the world’s leading museums, such as the Tate Gallery in London; the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; the Centre Georges Pompidou and the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris; the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam; and the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo.