Showstoppers: Jimmy Wright

An exhibition of the artist’s emotionally charged floral paintings goes on view, in London, for the month of September.

By Anne Hevener

The celebration of the work of American artist Jimmy Wright is hopping the pond this month with a 5-week exhibition at Thomas Dane Gallery, in London, in collaboration with Chicago gallery, Corbett vs. Dempsey. Entitled “After the War,” the London show will feature the artist’s flower paintings, made in oil and pastel, from 1992 onwards. 

Born in Union City, Tenn., in 1944, Wright grew up in rural Kentucky. As a young man, he moved first to Chicago, where he studied at The Art Institute of Chicago, and then moved to New York City in 1974, where he has lived since. It was when his partner, Ken Nuzzo, was diagnosed with AIDS, in 1988, that Wright began his paintings of flowers, infusing the traditional still life subject with an emotional vitality that communicated feelings of pain, grief and the enduring power of love. Characterized by thick applications of paint and an underlayer of acrylic modeling paste that creates a sculptural quality, Wright’s initial series of works, called “Flowers for Ken,” launched what would be a lasting creative inquiry. The Thomas Dane Gallery writes that the artwork being shown in the “After the War” exhibition, “can be seen as portraits of the artistic community lost to the pandemic.” 

An Inside Look at Sun and Shadow

Wright’s story of the making and meaning of the piece, Sun and Shadow (seen above; 1999–2001; oil on canvas, 96×72), a monumentally sized piece that the artist worked on for more than three years, describes the hidden tension behind bold, powerful floral imagery and the fragility they represent:

“I had completed a series of flower-basket paintings as diptychs—familial twin baskets of flowers that could be installed either as a single painting in two parts, averaging 12 feet in length, or as two individual, 6-foot paintings that communicated across a room or wall,” he says. “The Shadow is the top basket of cool blue sunflowers—a heavy, overbearing storm cloud passing over the lower basket of warm, sunlit sunflowers, The Sun, which formally pushes forward in the pictorial space. A silver slice of white light on the left side of the composition acts like the lever on a slot machine, propelling the heavy, cool basket forward in an endless, visually dynamic struggle of opposing forces on a flat canvas.

“I call my flower paintings ‘Trojan Horses,’ because—while they masquerade as appealing, seductive still lifes of flowers—they are memento mori representations of nature that explore themes of loss, survival and memory, serving as monuments to the fragility of life and beauty.”

“After the War” is on view from September 4 to October 1, 2026, at Thomas Dane Gallery, 11 Duke Street, St James’s, London SW1. 

To learn more about the artist, Jimmy Wright, visit jimmywrightartist.com.

Works on Paper 

In an article for Pastel Journal (February 2019), Wright advised artists not to let technique overpower the art. “Many artists put the cart before the horse,” he said. “And they apply technique with such rigidity that it suffocates the art. Technique has to come out of the search for art.” Here are some additional examples of works by the artist, created in pastel, that demonstrate putting the expression at the forefront.