Neil Jenney / Pablo Picasso

In 2010, artist Neil Jenney commissioned the late portrait painter Ki-Young Sung to create copies of works by Pablo Picasso. Sung had trained as an artist in his home city of Seoul (South Korea) after which he became a portraitist for the South Korean military. After many years making portraits and subsequently running his own gallery, Sung moved to New York City where he worked as a portrait painter. Jenney first met him after walking past his studio and seeing a Picasso copy in the window. After Sung’s copies were created for Jenney, Jenney then went about touching up details as he saw necessary and building them new frames, resulting in what he titled “Improved Picassos.”

Juxtaposed with the Jenney works are lithographs from a 1967 portfolio (La Flûte Double), which are reproduced watercolors by Picasso made between 1932 to 1955. Just as this portfolio is a riff on Picasso’s incredible pictorial range and states as a cultural icon of his day, for Jenney, his work presents the opportunity to honor the original image by playing with its presentation.

About Neil Jenney

A maverick of twentieth-century American art, Neil Jenney pursues realism as a style and a philosophy. Mostly self-taught, he attended the Massachusetts College of Art in 1964 and moved to New York in 1966, where he has lived and worked since. His works have been shown at institutions including The Museum of Modern Art (New York), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), The Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), The Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington), The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles) and The Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles).

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, and one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. He is best known for co-founding the Cubist movement and for his innovative approach to form, perspective, and artistic expression.

Neil Jenney, Improved Picasso, Mother and Child, 2006, Oil on canvas in artist frame. Private Collection. Image courtesy of the artist