Jacqueline de Jong’s eclectic paintings share an unwavering commitment to revolutionary aesthetics and politics. Her experiments with figuration and narrative mythologies condense geographical and historical timelines, giving rise to archetypal depictions of human suffering and strife. Drawing upon the artist’s biography as a World War II émigrée, her work evokes the profound trauma of dispossession and political powerlessness while eluding any fixed interpretation.
Best known as one of the few woman members of the Situationist International, Jong’s dedication to painting resulted in her eventual expulsion from the increasingly theoretical group. During this time, the artist also became deeply involved in local activism, founding the influential journal, The Situationist International (1958–1969) and fashioning disruptive interventions in public spaces. Jong’s persistent and prolific production is defined by fractured compositions and a preoccupation with cruelty, banality, humor, eroticism and even the joie de vivre of the human condition, making for an unquestionably grotesque and affective body of work.
Jacqueline de Jong (b. 1939, Hengelo, The Netherlands; d. 2024, Amsterdam) lived and worked between Amsterdam, Netherlands and Bourbonnais, France. Recent solo exhibitions include Jacqueline de Jong: Vicious Circles, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, Florida (2024); Narrative / Non-Narrative, Ortuzar Projects, New York (2024); Frontspace: Border…and other Lines, Dürst Britt & Mayhew, The Hague, Netherlands (2023); The Ultimate Kiss, WIELS Centre d’Art Contemporain, Brussel, MOSTYN, Wales, and Kunstmuseum Ravensburg (2022, 2021); Border-Line, Ortuzar Projects, New York (2021); Catastrophes, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London (2020); Pinball Wizard, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2019); Retrospective, Musée Les Abattoirs, Toulouse (2018); Jacqueline de Jong & The Situationist Times, Malmö Konsthall (2018), and Undercover in de kunst, Cobra Museum for Contemporary Art, Amstelveen (2003). Her work has been featured in surveys including Strategic Vandalism: The Legacy of Asger Jorn’s Modification Paintings, Petzel, New York (2019); Asger Jorn & Jacqueline de Jong: Case of the Ascetic Satyr, Galerie Clemens Thimme, Karlsruhe (2016); and The Avant-Garde Won’t Give Up: Cobra and Its Legacy, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (2015). In May 2023, De Jong was named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. She is the recipient of an Outstanding Merit Award (2019), administered by the French Ministry for Culture and the AWARE Prize for Women Artists. Her work is in the permanent collections of the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre George Pompidou, Paris; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Musée les Abattoirs, Toulouse; Cobra Museum for Modern Art, Amstelveen; Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem; Museum Arnhem, Arnhem; Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Museum Jorn, Silkeborg; Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo; MONA Tasmania; Kunstmuseum Göteborg; Lenbachhaus, Munich; MCCA Toronto, and others, and her papers are the collection of the Beinecke Library of Rare Books and Manuscripts, Yale University.
