Ben Hunter and Offer Waterman are delighted to announce co-representation of Tess Jaray (b. 1937).
The galleries will present a solo booth of work by Jaray at Frieze Masters 2024 (9-13 October). The installation will focus on significant paintings from 1979-1987 which were included in her seminal 1988 solo exhibition at Serpentine Gallery, London. In July 2024, a retrospective of Jaray’s work will open at Millennium Gallery, Sheffield Museum, UK. This will be her second solo exhibition at the museum, her first was in 1972. The exhibition will run from 20 July -13 October 2024.
For more than 60 years, Jaray has developed a singular practice which explores pictorial and architectural space through abstract painting. Born in Vienna in 1937, she came to the United Kingdom in 1938 as part of the flight of Jewish refugees from the Nazis. Jaray studied at Saint Martin’s School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art in the 1950’s. She was invited to return to the Slade in 1968 as the school’s first female lecturer, where she taught for more than thirty years. Her bold, illusory paintings combine a highly distinctive palette with floating, hard-edged motifs which are inspired by her encounters with Italian Renaissance and Middle Eastern architecture. Her compositions hint at the built environment through the isolation and repetition of details and motifs. While her practice touches upon certain aspects of Op Art, Minimalism and Colour Field painting, it resists formal categorisation.
‘It is such an honour to be working with Tess. She has refined an inspirational and profoundly singular practice, and her paintings remain some of the most exceptional and distinctive of our time. We very much look forward to working in collaboration, bringing together our shared expertise of both modern and contemporary art, to expand the global appreciation for Tess’s work.’ - Ben Hunter & Offer Waterman.
Jaray continues to make new work. In 2021 she had a retrospective at Secession, Vienna, Austria and in 2023, a group of her paintings from the 1980’s were shown in the Gwangju Biennale in South Korea. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham (2019); Serpentine Gallery, London (1988); Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (1984); Adelaide Festival Centre, Australia (1980); and Whitechapel Gallery, London (1973).
In 1995 she was made Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in recognition of the following significant public commissions: Centenary Square, Birmingham, UK (1988–92); terrazzo floor in the forecourt of Victoria Station, London, UK (1986); and mural for the British Pavilion at Expo 67, Montreal, Canada (1967). In 2010 Jaray was elected a Royal Academician and in 2013, a Senior RA.
Her work is held in public collections including Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Tate, London, UK; Belvedere Museum, Vienna, Austria; Mumok, Vienna, Austria; The British Museum, London, UK; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, MA, USA; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK; Western Australia Art Gallery, Perth, Australia; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK; Graves Gallery, Sheffield Museum, UK; Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, UK; Arts Council Collection, London, UK; Contemporary Art Society, London, UK; Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, Serbia; Museum des 20 Jahrhunderts, Vienna, Austria; Städtisches Museum, Leverkusen, Germany; Sundsvall Museum, Sundsvall, Sweden; Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest, Hungary; The Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, UK; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK; Western Australia Art Gallery, Perth, Australia, UK; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK; Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum, Worcester, UK.
Tess Jaray is represented in Austria by Exile Gallery, Vienna.
