In the year of the Biennale Arte, the International Gallery of Ca’ Pesaro returns to contemporary voices with an extraordinary exhibition of one of the most important painters of our time, Jenny Saville. This is the first extensive exhibition of Saville's work in Venice and aims to document her development by retracing her career from the beginnings in the 1990s to the present day.

Born in 1970 in Cambridge, Saville attended the Glasgow School of Art from 1988 to 1992, spending a semester at the University of Cincinnati in 1991. Her figurative paintings have evolved to include contemporary debates on the body with all their social implications and taboos. It was during this trip to America that she discovered the work of New York painters such as Willem de Kooning and Cy Twombly.

Alongside her dialogue with the great Masters, ancient sculpture, and modern European figurative painting, she began to explore the foundations of painting as explored by abstract painters. Belonging to the generation of painters and sculptors that distinguished themselves in the UK between the late '80s and early '90s, often referred to as Young British Artists (YBA), Saville revitalized contemporary figurative painting by reconnecting with the sensuality of oil painting and its potential, raising questions about society's perception of the body.

The exhibition at Ca’ Pesaro presents her work through 30 paintings, including many masterpieces that have marked her production in recent decades. Saville's practice is deeply rooted in the history of painting. At Ca' Pesaro, her monumental canvases engage in a dialogue with the great painters of the past present in Venice, creating a