Born in 1923 in New Jersey (USA), Shirley Jaffe worked and lived in Paris until her death, on September 29th, 2016.
Jaffe graduated from the Cooper Union School in New York (1945) and the Philips Art School in Washington (1949).
She moved to Paris where she lived until her death at the age of 92, leaving in 1949 the United States where she would still exhibit regularly. A close friend of Sam Francis, Joan Mitchell, Jean-Paul Riopelle and Al Held, Jaffe first came to be known in the art scene for her abstract expressionist work. She broke away from an expressionist abstract and gestual style in 1963- 1964 after a residency in Berlin with the Ford Foundation, adopting instead a colourful, geometric style.
Considered one of the most influential painters in contemporary abstract art, she caught the attention of artists from younger generations, such as Shirley Kaneda and Bernard Piffaretti. She was also very well-respected from artists such as Jessica Stockholder, Claude Viallat, Fiona Rae, Carole Benzaken, Amy Sillman, Charline von Heyl and Stanley Whitney.
A major traveling solo exhibition has been held at the Centre Pompidou (Paris) in 2022, then at the Kunstmuseum (Basel) and the Musée Matisse (Nice) in 2023.
After a state commission in 1999, she designed stained-glass windows for the chapel Funeraria of Perpignan in southern France. Her work is collected by many prestigious public and private collections, notably at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Kunstmuseum Basel, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the MAC/ VAL in Vitry, the Fondation Cartier for Contemporary Art in Paris, the Museum Berardo in Lisbonne.
Galerie Nathalie Obadia has devoted four exhibitions to Shirley Jaffe, in 1999, 2001, 2008 and 2013.
Shirley Jaffe has been represented by Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Brussels since 1999.
The Estate of Shirley Jaffe was entrusted to Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Brussels, in 2016, after the artist's death.
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The Shirley Jaffe Foundation has initiated a Catalogue Raisonné project that will be developed over the next years, to document, honor, and protect the work of Shirley Jaffe, ensuring that her contribution to modern and abstract art is studied and presented with scholarly rigor. The Catalogue Raisonné will be edited by art historians Olga Osadtschy and Jelle Imkampe, who have worked extensively on Jaffe’s oeuvre.
The Shirley Jaffe Foundation is dedicated to the preservation, research, publication, and dissemination of the artistic work of Shirley Jaffe. In furtherance of this mission, the Foundation supports and initiates projects that advance the study and public understanding of the artist’s work.
The Foundation invites collectors, institutions, and individuals with knowledge of or works by the artist to contact the Foundation at info@shirleyjaffefoundation.org