Stuart Macbeth meets artist Jenny Saville at the opening of her latest show

Within the Ashmolean Museum’s current Titian To Canaletto show of Venetian drawings, an entire room is devoted to new and unseen work by Oxford artist Jenny Saville RA.

Few contemporary artists could so appropriately command the space, but precisely 44 of her drawings are on display, 28 created specifically for inclusion in the exhibition.

“About a year ago my neighbours introduced me to the curator, Catherine Whistler,” Saville explains. “She showed me pictures of some of the work that had been selected for the exhibition. There was a drawing by Titian that I loved. On the strength of it I said I’d do the show.

“I originally thought I’d be given one wall where I could have one or two drawings but it has blossomed into a much bigger space.

“About a quarter of the new work I have done for this exhibition is on display here, along with drawings I had never intended to display. When I put this selection together I wanted to show different avenues of drawing.”

The drawings have been made with graphite, charcoal, pencil and oil stain on paper, vellum and canvas.

Many mediums match those used by the likes of Bellini, Tintoretto and Tiepolo in the adjoining rooms.

“I’ve tried to get the colours of Venice with red pencil,” she tells me, and up close to one large work reveals a surprising technique.

“The erasure here has been made using the suction from a Henry Hoover. I wanted to capture the light by rubbing out the charcoal. I used the hoover because I wanted a tool that was like a rubber, but on a large scale.”

Among new drawings are several masterful studies of arms made in response to Titian drawings on display here, some of which come on loan from the Uffizi.

“There’s a roughness in Titian‘s lines,” she enthuses, “an attitude.”

Saville, who is best known for her large scale oils of human bodies, faces and flesh such as Still, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, admits that the human body hasn’t changed since Titian’s day: “You can see that in this show, in the legs drawn by Titian. The meatiness of the legs is still there. When you look at the armature of the body it isn’t any different.“ In her own works, Saville says she has attempted to access the beauty of the human body in a way which deliberately avoids sentimentality.

“I’m in the cause of being more aggressive, in more existential ways of portraying the body,” she explains.

“I really like how painters like Titian show reality. They’re not afraid to show the wrinkles of old age or the folds around the body.”

The artist now lives and works in Oxford. She was taught to paint here as a child, visiting her uncle during school holidays. He would take her on drawing trips to Venice where, in the Rialto Market, she was encouraged her to sit and sketch the workers.

Saville has recently begun to follow her uncle’s example by drawing with her own children, one of whom was born at the JR. She describes the experience as re-awakening her interest in drawing.

“I’ve been able to ask ‘what do I want drawing to be?’” she says. “I’ve been able to watch their drawing develop, to see their pleasure in making forms, it has opened up the door creatively for me too.

“I think drawing is vital, like singing or dancing. Drawing is a fundamental human activity.”

Where and when
Jenny Saville
Drawing Part of Titian To Canaletto: Drawing in Venice 
Ashmolean Museum. Until Jan 10