Peter Saul San Francisco, CA, USA, b. 1934
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© Gary Tatintsian Gallery -
“I always do things the wrong way, which is completely empty Territory.”
– Peter Saul
Lives and works in New York, NY, USA
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Peter Saul is widely regarded as one of the most influential and distinctive American painters of the postwar era. Combining the expressive intensity of Pop Art with the wit of underground comics and the critical insight of social satire, Saul developed a distinctly personal style that has consistently defied categorization.
Often described as a “violator of good taste,” Saul’s paintings merge vivid color, cartoon imagery, and expressive distortion into charged compositions that reflect the contradictions of contemporary society. His pioneering role in the emergence of Bad Painting—a term associated with deliberately anti-academic, expressive figuration—established him as a central figure in contemporary painting and a touchstone for later artists including Sue Williams, Kara Walker, Robert Melee, and Carroll Dunham.
Over a career spanning more than seven decades, Saul has maintained a dialogue between mass culture and the history of art. In the 1950s, he began incorporating comic and cartoon figures such as Superman and Donald Duck into expressionist compositions, confronting high art with popular iconography. In the 1960s, he produced paintings that served as fierce indictments of war and political authority, responding to the Vietnam conflict. During the 1970s, he reinterpreted canonical works—among them Rembrandt’s The Night Watch and Picasso’s Guernica—recasting them through his own acerbic lens. Throughout his practice, Saul has balanced parody with critique, transforming humor, excess, and contradiction into vehicles for reflection on both image and ideology.Beneath their apparent irreverence, Saul’s paintings reveal a sustained engagement with the history of modern art. His mastery of composition, color, and structure enables him to construct layered dialogues between cultural commentary, formal exploration, and autobiographical reference. Through this synthesis, Saul has articulated a distinctive and provocative vision that invites viewers to reconsider social values and confront the psychology of contemporary experience.
“THE IMPORTANT THING IS THAT A WORK HAS TO LOOK FRESH, TO BE AS ORIGINAL AS POSSIBLE. THAT MEANS IT HAS TO HAVE ITS OWN IDEA AND PSYCHOLOGY. I TRY TO MAKE IT WORTH LOOKING AT, TO TURN IT INTO A SENSATION. TRUE OR FALSE DOESN’T MATTER AT ALL AS LONG AS IT’S DISTURBING OR FUNNY, BECAUSE I LOVE ALL PSYCHOLOGY. BAD THINGS MAKE ME LAUGH JUST AS OFTEN AS GOOD THINGS. THIS HAS BEEN MY ART STYLE FOR OVER 55 YEARS. I AM OPEN TO ANY HUMOR, EXCEPT SOPHISTICATED HUMOR. TOO MANY GOOD ARTISTS HAVE SOUGHT AFTER IT. THE SECRET OF THE SUCCESS OF A “BAD” ARTIST IS IN OVERCOMING THE NEED FOR APPROVAL.”
– PETER SAUL
In 2020, the New Museum in New York presented a major retrospective, Peter Saul: Crime and Punishment, curated by Massimiliano Gioni and Gary Carrion-Murayari, celebrating the artist’s groundbreaking contributions to contemporary art.
Works by Peter Saul are held in major international collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles; and the Art Institute of Chicago. -
WorksOpen a larger version of the following image in a popup:
Peter Saul. You Better Call Saul. Gary Tatintsian Gallery, 22 Apr–31 Aug 2016
Peter Saul San Francisco, CA, USA, b. 1934
Wall Street Suicide, 2012Acrylic on canvas178 × 152 cmFurther images
Each of Peter Saul's works weaves together multiple cultural layers. In Wall Street Suicide, Édouard Manet’s provocative imagery collides with the surreal, distorted figures of Francis Bacon and the enduring...Each of Peter Saul's works weaves together multiple cultural layers. In Wall Street Suicide, Édouard Manet’s provocative imagery collides with the surreal, distorted figures of Francis Bacon and the enduring American icon of Frankenstein—both dead and alive. The painting’s bold use of color and jarring, exaggerated aesthetic exemplify Saul’s painterly mastery and his uniquely probing approach to contemporary themes.
“The important thing is that a work has to look fresh, to be as original as possible. That means it has to have its own idea and psychology. I try to make it worth looking at, to turn it into a sensation. True or false doesn’t matter at all as long as it’s disturbing or funny, because I love all psychology. Bad things make me laugh just as often as good things. This has been my art style for over 55 years. I am open to any humor, except sophisticated humor. Too many good artists have sought after it. The secret of the success of a “bad” artist is in overcoming the need for approval.” – Peter Saul
Exhibitions
Peter Saul. Neptune and the Octopus Painter. Veneklasen Werner Gallery, Berlin, Germany. 27 Apr 2013–29 Jun 2013
Mystifiers. NCCA, Moscow, Russia. 12 Feb–20 Mar 2016
Peter Saul. You Better Call Saul. Gary Tatintsian Gallery. 22 Apr –31Aug 2016Publications
Mystifiers. NCCA, Moscow, 2016 pp. 9, 13, 79-81
Peter Saul: You Better Call Saul. Gary Tatintsian Gallery, 2016
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