Who Is Jenny Saville? Age, Biography and Wiki
Jenny Saville, born on May 7, 1970, is a renowned British painter known for her provocative and larger-than-life portraits that challenge traditional notions of beauty and the human form. As of 2025, Saville is 54 years old. With a passion for art that began at a young age, she has made significant contributions to the contemporary art scene, evident in her captivating works that often explore themes of body image, identity, and the human experience.
| Occupation | Painters |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | May 7, 1970 |
| Age | 55 Years |
| Birth Place | Cambridge, England |
| Horoscope | Taurus |
| Country | England |
Popularity
Jenny Saville's Popularity over time
Height, Weight & Measurements
Standing at an impressive height of approximately 5 feet 8 inches (173 cm), Jenny Saville possesses a strong and commanding presence, both in her physicality and in her artwork. While details about her weight are not publicly disclosed, her art frequently celebrates the human body in its diverse forms, challenging conventional expectations and celebrating all body types.
In an interview for the Saatchi Gallery, Saville comments "I have to really work at the tension between getting the paint to have the sensory quality that I want and be constructive in terms of building the form of a stomach, for example, or creating the inner crevice of a thigh.
The more I do it, the more the space between abstraction and figuration becomes interesting. I want a painting realism. I try to consider the pace of a painting, of active and quiet areas. Listening to music helps a lot, especially music where there's a hard sound and then soft breathable passages."
Family, Dating & Relationship Status
Despite her fame, Jenny Saville has remained relatively private regarding her personal life. As of 2025, she is reportedly single. She has never publicly confirmed any high-profile relationships or partnerships, choosing to keep her private life away from the media spotlight. Many of her creative inspirations come from her interactions with family and friends, which fuel her artistic expressions.
Net Worth and Salary
As of 2025, estimates put Jenny Saville’s net worth in the range of $10 million to $15 million. Her wealth comes primarily from her successful career as an artist, with her works being featured in prestigious galleries around the world. In recent years, her paintings have fetched significant sums at auctions, contributing to her financial success.
Career, Business and Investments
Jenny Saville rose to prominence in the 1990s with her first major exhibition, showcasing her innovative style and bold themes. Her career has flourished since then, with frequent exhibitions in galleries including the Saatchi Gallery and the Venice Biennale. Saville has ventured into various artistic collaborations and projects, further expanding her influence in contemporary art. She also invests in emerging artists and initiatives that challenge societal norms through art.
From the beginning of her career, Saville has engaged in an intense exploration of the body and its representation.
Saville borrows conventions from a long tradition in figure painting, whether in poses borrowed from Madonna and Child paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, the use of a colour palette reminiscent of Peter Paul Rubens, or the gestural painting of Willem de Kooning in his Woman series.
Saville appropriates these techniques associated with male masters to show her own point of view as a woman.
Social Network
Jenny Saville is not very active on social media, preferring to focus on her art rather than her online persona. However, she does share insights and updates occasionally through platforms like Instagram and Twitter, where her fans can catch glimpses of her creative process and upcoming exhibitions. Her minimalist social media presence reflects her belief in letting the art speak for itself.
Since her debut in 1992, Saville's focus has remained on the female body. She has stated, "I'm drawn to bodies that emanate a sort of state of in-betweenness: hermaphrodite, a transvestite, a carcass, a half-alive/half-dead head." In 1994, Saville spent many hours observing plastic surgery operations in New York City.
Her published sketches and documents include surgical photographs of liposuction, trauma victims, deformity correction, disease states and transgender patients.
Much of her work features distorted flesh, high-caliber brush strokes, and patches of oil colour, while others reveal the surgeon's mark of a plastic surgery operation or white "target" rings. Her paintings are usually much larger than life-size, usually six-by-six feet or more.
They are strongly pigmented and give a highly sensual impression of the surface of the skin as well as the mass of the body. Saville's post-painterly style has been compared to that of Lucian Freud and Rubens.
Education
Jenny Saville pursued her education in art at the Glasgow School of Art and later attended the University of Oxford, where she gained further recognition for her talent. Her formal education equipped her with a strong foundation in various artistic techniques, allowing her to develop her unique style that continues to challenge and inspire viewers worldwide.
Saville went to the Lilley and Stone School (now The Newark Academy) in Newark, Nottinghamshire, for her secondary education, later gaining her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Glasgow School of Art (1988–1992). She was then awarded a six-month scholarship to the University of Cincinnati where she enrolled in a course in women's studies.
Saville was exposed to gender political ideas and renowned feminist writers. During her time in Cincinnati, she saw a lot of big women in shorts and t-shirts. This was the kind of physicality that she found herself interested in.
She partially credits her interest in big bodies to Pablo Picasso, an artist that she sees as a painter that made his subjects solid and permanent.
