An heir to Kandinsky and Matisse, Shirley Jaffe’s early work was in the abstract expressionist movement and her first paintings were full of gestural energy; the bright colours were worked in broad brush strokes. From the 1970s onwards, her work opened up a more personal path; she abandoned gesture and matter for colours that were circumscribed by a free geometry. The composition becomes more frontal and the idea of chaos becomes a metaphor and a driving force for solid blocks of colour disjointed and planed by an increasingly insinuating white “cement”. A hospitable woman, Jaffe has welcomed many young artists into her home, but she has always remained secretive about her personal life and laconic about her feminist convictions. A rich iconography of Shirley Jaffe’s works as well as unpublished archival photographs illustrate this monograph. The book includes texts by Frédéric Paul, curator of contemporary art at the Musée national d’art moderne, Svetlana Alpers, a renowned American art historian, Claudine Grammont, director of the Musée Matisse in Nice, and an interview with the artist conducted by Robert Kushner. Catalog of the exhibition “Shirley Jaffe. An American in Paris” at the Centre Pompidou from April 20 to August 29, 2022.

An heir to Kandinsky and Matisse, Shirley Jaffe’s early work was in the abstract expressionist movement and her first paintings were full of gestural energy; the bright colours were worked in broad brush strokes. From the 1970s onwards, her work opened up a more personal path; she abandoned gesture and matter for colours that were circumscribed by a free geometry. The composition becomes more frontal and the idea of chaos becomes a metaphor and a driving force for solid blocks of colour disjointed and planed by an increasingly insinuating white “cement”. A hospitable woman, Jaffe has welcomed many young artists into her home, but she has always remained secretive about her personal life and laconic about her feminist convictions. A rich iconography of Shirley Jaffe’s works as well as unpublished archival photographs illustrate this monograph. The book includes texts by Frédéric Paul, curator of contemporary art at the Musée national d’art moderne, Svetlana Alpers, a renowned American art historian, Claudine Grammont, director of the Musée Matisse in Nice, and an interview with the artist conducted by Robert Kushner. Catalog of the exhibition “Shirley Jaffe. An American in Paris” at the Centre Pompidou from April 20 to August 29, 2022.