1950s In 1953, after studying with
Yasuo Kuniyoshi at the
Art Students League of New York, Jenkins traveled to Italy and Spain, settling in Paris where his first solo exhibition took place in 1954 at Studio
Paul Facchetti on the rue de Lille.
Paul Facchetti, with the help of Alfonso Ossorio, held in 1952, an exhibition of the work of
Jackson Pollock in his gallery, which was well known for showing works by abstract artists of the time, among others. Jenkins' first solo exhibition in the US took place in 1954 at the pioneering gallery of
Zoe Dusanne in Seattle. His first solo exhibition in New York was held in 1956 at the
Martha Jackson Gallery, a leading gallery of the time. The
Whitney Museum of American Art in New York purchased the painting "Divining Rod" from this exhibition. In the '50s, Jenkins achieved prominence both in New York and Europe for his early abstractions. At the
Gutai exhibition held at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York in 1958, Jenkins was invited by
Jiro Yoshihara to work with Gutai in Osaka; however, Jenkins waited until 1964 to implement this invitation. From the artist's studio in Paris in 1959,
Peggy Guggenheim purchased "Osage," a work on canvas, and continued to later purchase the artist's work. Jenkins continued to experiment with flowing paints, pouring pigment in streams of various thicknesses, with white linear overlays. Jenkins, described as an
abstract expressionist, would at times call himself "an abstract phenomenist." His early works were made in oil on primed canvas, as he continued working on paper with ink and with watercolor. In 1959 and 1960, he explored the writings of
Goethe and
Kant. Influenced by
Goethe's color theories, he began to preface the titles of his works with the word "Phenomena" followed by a key word or phrase. Regarding his paintings, he once said, "I have conversations with them, and they tell me what they want to be called."
1960s Gradually in 1960 he moved away from working in oil on canvas to acrylic. Jenkins began to paint using an ivory knife, a key tool in the creation of his work: The art historian Albert E. Elsen has noted: "Jenkins was not staining his canvas, because of the sizing and priming." Throughout the 60s, his work was shown worldwide, at major galleries and museums in Tokyo, London, New York, Paris, Amsterdam and elsewhere. In 1963, he took over
Willem de Kooning's light-infused loft at Union Square in New York City where he worked until the end of 2000. In 1964, he traveled to
Tokyo for his exhibition at the Tokyo Gallery and worked with
Gutai in Osaka. Gutai works in Jenkins' collection are later shown in a 2009 exhibition curated by Ming Tiampo at the
Pollock-Krasner House & Study Center in The Springs, East Hampton, then traveling to The Harold B. Lemmerman Gallery, New Jersey City University. In 2010, this exhibition traveled to UB Anderson Gallery of the State University of New York Buffalo.
The Ivory Knife, a film by the Martha Jackson Gallery and Red Parrot, receives the Golden Eagle Award at the 1966
Venice Film Festival and is shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His play,
Strike the Puma, is published by Editions Gonthier in 1966, and in 1968 is performed off Broadway in New York City. During this time, Harry Abrams decides against including what the artist called his "black and white photo montages" in the forthcoming monograph then in preparation and published in 1973 with text by the late art historian Albert E. Elsen. Fragments of these autobiographical montages are later integrated into expanded collages that form
Anatomy of a Cloud, published by Harry N. Abrams in 1983. In 1968, Jenkins began the creation of a limited number of solid and unique sculptures in glass with Egidio Costantini in
Murano. Several of these works were shown in the 2007 exhibition
Viva Vetro! Glass Alive! Venice and America, 1950-2006.
1970s Sculpture, already present in the artist's life in the 1950s, comes to the forefront with a series of works. In 1971, invited by Philip Pavia to participate in the Sculptors' Symposium held at the
Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York, Jenkins carves a 2-ton block of French limestone currently in the collection of the Hofstra Museum Sculpture Garden in
Hempstead, New York. In this decade, the artist creates the first drawing for Meditation Mandala, a sculpture project for a park.
Meditation Mandala is then cast in bronze, together with the sculptures
Shakti Samothrace,
Excalibur and
Echo Chamber. Collages, a little known aspect of the artist's work, begin to come into view. Prior to publication of
Anatomy of a Cloud in 1983 by Harry N. Abrams, the artist's collages were largely unknown. A notable exception is the 1978 exhibition at the Gimpel Weitzenhoffer Gallery in New York, which integrated sculptural elements with collage. Yet, as early as the mid-fifties, visitors to the artist's Paris studio could see abstract collaged interior doors, as well as an inner wall later called Hokusai Arch, consisting of collaged Japanese woodcuts. In 1971-1972 a retrospective of works on canvas organized by Gerald Nordland and Philippe de Montebello took place at the
Houston Museum of Fine Arts and the
San Francisco Museum of Art. The
Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., initiates an exhibition of his watercolors which traveled across the US for two years. At Shidoni Foundry, he also casts a unique sculpture in bronze,
Four Corners. In 1987, through the initiative of Jean-Louis Martinoty, the Paris Opera stages
Shaman to the Prism Seen, a dance-drama written by Jenkins retracing the passage of colors through the prism. Jenkins paints two canvases 30 x 40 feet each for the stage set, together with vertical paintings on canvas as sentinel elements for the stage, as well as costumes and silks, and creates a sculptural prism dais for Shaman. During the preparation of his monograph
Anatomy of a Cloud, Jenkins creates collages in honor of the French theatre director and actor,
Jean-Louis Barrault. These collages are shown at the French Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York. At Barrault's request, these works travel to the theatre of the Renaud-Barrault Company, Le Théâtre du Rond-Point in Paris, to inaugurate La Maison Internationale du Théâtre, whose insignia is created from a work by the artist. The director,
Alan Schneider, enters
Anatomy of a Cloud into his workshop of actors at the
University of California, San Diego. Jenkins begins to use granular poured veils on scraped prism forms; abstract collage elements integrate themselves in the works on canvas.
Anatomy of a Cloud, an autobiographical book of what the artist calls "word impressions" and collages, is published by Harry N. Abrams in New York in 1983 and receives the silver medal from the
Art Directors Club of New York.
1990s In 1990, invited by
Abba Eban, Jenkins traveled to Israel and the following year to Japan and to Italy. In Paris, he created a series of original lithographs on stone entitled,
Seven Aspects of Amadeus and the Others. In 1991, Jenkins' Polyptychs on canvas entitled,
Conjunctions and Annexes are shown in New York at the Gimpel Weitzenhoffer Gallery; a book of the same title is published with a text by Pascal Bonafoux. In 1994, ''Water and Color/L'Eau et la Couleur'', an exhibition of his watercolors, was initiated by PACA in
Angers and traveled throughout France for two years. In the late 1990s, the Steel elements of
Meditation Mandala made by the artist at the Shidoni Foundry in New Mexico were installed in the sculpture garden of
Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY. In 1999, the Hofstra Museum held an exhibition of the artist's works on canvas from 1954-1960 in New York and Paris.
2000s In 2000, the
Butler Institute of American Art in Ohio exhibited Jenkins' works on paper from the exhibition,
Water and Color. In 2003 Jenkins began to exhibit with the Redfern Gallery in London. In 2005, he created specific works on canvas in
New York for As Above So Below, a temporary installation at the
Silvacane Abbey, a 12th-century
Cistercian abbey in
La Roque-d'Anthéron, near Aix-en-Provence. In 2005,
Œuvres Majeures, an exhibition of works on canvas together with watercolors, was shown at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in
Lille in 2005. In 2007, 2008, and 2009, Jenkins donated around 5,000 pieces from his archive to the
Archives of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution, then his personal papers.
2010s In 2010, the new Crocker Art Museum building exhibited,
Paul Jenkins: The Color of Light, 50 watercolors including large-scale and works originally created in conjunction with his dance-drama performed at the Paris Opera, together with selected paintings on canvas.
Death Jenkins died in
Manhattan, USA in 2012, one month prior to his 89th birthday, after suffering an illness. The
Strand Bookstore in Manhattan, which the artist loved to frequent over many years, devoted a window to him when they learned of his death. ==Public collections (selected list)==