Bill Jensen United States, b. 1945

Bill Jensen was born in 1945 in Minneapolis, MN. He graduated in 1968 from the University of Minnesota with a BFA and two years later with an MFA. Jensen is renowned for his take on abstract expressionist styles of work, and for its use of shapes and imagery in large spaces on the canvas. Many consider the artist’s pieces to be eerie and dark. He had a showing in 1971 at the Brooklyn Museum, but Jensen was forced to take a short recess from painting after a toxic reaction to his paints later that year. Throughout the 1980s, Jensen was part of the Five Painters of New York. In 1987, the artist received the National Endowment for the Arts Artist Fellowship. His abstract designs often contrasted light colors with dark, bold images.

Jensen’s work is part of public collections including The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna, the Honolulu Museum of Art,Hawaii, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the Tate Gallery, the Walker Art Center, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.