British painter Jenny Saville will present a major solo exhibition at the International Gallery of Modern Art at Ca' Pesaro in Venice next year, coinciding with the 2026 Venice Biennale. This marks Saville's first solo exhibition in the northern Italian city and represents her fourth major museum show within an 18-month period, highlighting the significant institutional recognition she has been receiving recently.
The exhibition, which will be supported by mega-gallery Gagosian that represents Saville, will take place at Ca' Pesaro, a baroque marble palace turned art museum that faces Venice's Grand Canal. Curated by Elisabetta Barisoni, the show will run from March 28 to November 22, 2026, and will comprise approximately 30 paintings documenting the development of Saville's work from her beginnings in the 1990s to the present day.
Saville has experienced sustained market demand over the past decade, breaking the auction record for a living female artist in 2018 when her 1992 self-portrait "Propped" sold for $9.5 million at Sotheby's in London. Other major auction sales include "Shift," which sold for $9.5 million in 2016, and "Juncture" (1994), which sold for $7.34 million this year, demonstrating the strong commercial appeal of her work.
Over the past 12 months, Saville has received considerable institutional recognition with major museum shows at London's National Portrait Gallery, the Albertina in Vienna, and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. "Venice represents a place where art is an intrinsic part of everyday life and where the Biennale artists of today sit in dialogue with these great Venetian artworks," Saville said in a statement. "It's a great honor to have the opportunity to exhibit in Venice."
According to the museum, Saville's practice is deeply rooted in the history of painting, and at Ca' Pesaro her monumental canvases will engage in dialogue with the great painters of the past present in Venice, creating a unique encounter between contemporary painting and the city's artistic heritage. The museum noted that Saville's relationship with the masters of the past, particularly the Italians, centers on the strong connection she continues to maintain with the Venetian School of painting.
Ca' Pesaro's permanent collection includes works by 20th-century abstract artists who have influenced Saville's practice, including Cy Twombly. "This exhibition marks Jenny Saville's return to Venice, a city she loves, has visited many times, and is rich in the work of the old Venetian masters that she has studied for many years," Barisoni said in a statement.
The exhibition's final room will display a previously unseen series of works that Saville has created as an homage to the lagoon city. Speaking to the Art Newspaper earlier this year, Saville explained her relationship with historical masters: "I think for all contemporary painters who look at Old Masters, the Old Masters are contemporary to them. You only have to go and see the Titian room at the National Gallery, it's just sensational. They come alive in every era, and they mean something different to each era of painters that are around at that time. So they're always relevant, they're just part of the dialogue you have with other people in painting."
