Jess

Born in 1923 in Long Beach, California, Jess took an unconventional path in becoming a painter. Studying chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, Jess worked briefly as a chemist in a wartime nuclear plant. It was not until 1945, however, when he dreamed of a nuclear apocalypse destroying humanity, that he quit his job and enrolled in the California School of Fine Arts, where he studied under Clyfford Still, Ad Reinhardt, and David Park, among others.

Working among San Francisco artists and writers of the 1950s Beat Generation, Jess infused literature throughout his oeuvre. Known for his “Paste-Ups,” Translations, and Salvages, Jess crafted complex images that married sources from his personal collection of archival letters, photographs, books, posters, and magazines. Bringing together disparate fragments into a single work, Jess is a modern master of storytelling, drawing reverent meditations on our collective past and contemporary society from sutured source material in thick impasto.

Works by Jess now reside across premier private and public collections, notably including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among many others.