Paul Jenkins (American, 1923-2012), , Black Heaume

Paul Jenkins (American, 1923-2012)Black HeaumeSigned bottom center, oil on canvas.38 x 38 in. (96.5 x 96.5cm)PROVENANCE:Weintraub Gallery, New York, New York.Collection of Dr. Henry and Mrs. Fannie Levine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (acquired directly from the above in 1974).EXHIBITION:"Paul Jenkins," Galerie Rudolf Stadler, Paris, France, March 19 - April 13, 1957, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, no. 12.NOTE:Paul Jenkins' extensive travel and deep thinking about art, literature, religion and philosophy make him a significant figure in the realm of post-war abstract art. Surrounding himself with interesting and influential thinkers, Jenkins soaked in myriad influences from a very young age. Jenkins grew up in Kansas City, Missouri where he frequented the Nelson-Atkins Museum (then known as the The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art) and was inspired early in his life by the Chinese sculpture, Indian bronzes and ancient artifacts in the permanent collection there.Jenkins fought in World War II in the US Naval Air Corps and moved to New York City after the war to study at the Art Student League with Yasuo Kuniyoshi on the GI Bill. In New York, the artist met Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Lee Krasner, but distinguished himself from the Abstract Expressionist artists of his time with his pursuit of Eastern cultural influences. Rather, he called himself an "abstract phenomenist" and sought to explore qualities of light and radiance through his particular style.Jenkins' lifelong artistic project was to explore the multiplicity of the human spirit and human expression. Speaking of his influences, Jenkins explained: "these Eastern attitudes fostered in me a sense of mystery about the universe that has drawn me all my life. Eastern art has inspired, nourished and helped me enter a state of mind where dualism seemed normal. Knowing that you are two instead of one allows you to see and perceive more than one thing at the same time" (Paul Jenkins and Suzanne Donnelly Jenkins, Paul Jenkins: Anatomy of a Cloud, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1983, p. 40).As early as 1953 Jenkins began pouring paint on primed canvases, painting flat but in a controlled manner to achieve the desired forms. Moving from oil to acrylic around 1960, Jenkins started titling his works beginning with Phenomena and adding subsequent words, depending on what the painting told him it wanted to be called. Phenomena was based on Goethe's color theory and Jenkins' reading of Kant, and his feeling that paintings do not represent something in the physical world, but rather are something in the world themselves, once saying that a painting "takes on its own metaphor and meaning." As he described his process, the Phenomena paintings were not poured on unprimed canvas as a way of staining or soaking, but rather he began with primed canvases and guided the paint along with an ivory knife, controlling the flow and identifying forms as he worked. These paintings exemplify his life-long endeavor to paint light: "I have tried to achieve a kind of form in its own discovered space, a kind of light which reveals itself from within, while the reflected element affirms from without" (Albert E. Elsen, Paul Jenkins, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1973). With an eye toward the Old Master paintings he frequently visited at the Frick Collection in his early days in New York, and his observations of Odilon Redon's pastels in Paris, Jenkins synthesized all his influences toward his vision.The Levine collection contains a depth of works by Jenkins that truly captures the artist's efforts. The 1950s paintings are clouds of rich, saturated color, full of emotional intensity, while the Phenomena works are like jewels, swirls of color finding their way on a white ground. Dr. Levine kept in close contact with the Arthur Tooth Gallery in London as he built his collection of Jenkins' work, keeping an eye out for paintings that particularly spoke to him. Tooth made a great partner for collectors like the Levines because the gallery had such a close relationship with the artist, giving Jenkins some of his earliest exhibitions and selling his work consistently until the gallery closed in the mid-1970s. Visually compelling and intellectually fascinating, Jenkins' work may have appealed to the Levines especially for the unique opportunity to gain a depth of understanding of the artist's process.