Chantal Joffe
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About
Chantal Joffe brings insight and integrity, as well as psychological and emotional depth, to the genre of figurative art. Defined by its clarity, honesty and empathetic warmth, her work is attuned to our awareness as both observers and observed beings, bold and expressive in style yet always questioning, nuanced and emotionally rich.
A primary focus throughout Joffe’s career has been on the women and children in her life, captured at various stages of their own lives. Joffe has talked about her paintings in terms of transitions, those associated with growing and ageing, as well as her attempts to mark a life’s milestones. The complex relationship between mother and child over time has been a significant theme, while self-portraiture, which Joffe considers ‘a way of thinking about time passing’, remains one of the cornerstones of her art.
Whether drawing inspiration from art history, popular culture or personal experiences, Joffe’s paintings are always attentive to narratives about connection, perception and representation. They alert us to the endless intricacies of bodily expression and the myriad ways in which we reveal ourselves and communicate emotion, consciously or otherwise, even in the most private of moments.
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Biography
Born in 1969, Chantal Joffe lives and works in London. She holds an MA from the Royal College of Art and was awarded the Royal Academy Wollaston Prize in 2006. Joffe has exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including Newlyn Art Gallery and The Exchange, Penzance, UK (2025); The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK (2023–24); The Modern, Fort Worth, Texas, USA (2022); Koohouse Museum, Yangpyong, Korea (2022); The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2021); The Foundling Museum, London, UK (2020); Arnolfini, Bristol, UK (2020); Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, UK (2019); Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2018); The Lowry, Salford, UK (2018); Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK (2018, 2017); National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavík (2016); National Portrait Gallery, London, UK (2015); Jewish Museum, New York, USA (2015); Jerwood Gallery, Hastings, UK (2015); Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy (2014–15); Saatchi Gallery, London, UK (2013–14); MODEM, Hungary (2012); Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK (2011); Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York, USA (2009); MIMA Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, UK (2007); Galleri KB, Oslo, Norway (2005) and Bloomberg Space, London, UK (2004).
Her work is in numerous institutional and private collections, including the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, USA; Detroit Institute of Arts, USA; The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK; National Portrait Gallery, London, UK; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA among others.
Joffe has created a major public work for the Elizabeth line in London titled A Sunday Afternoon in Whitechapel, on view at Whitechapel Elizabeth line station.
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News
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Chantal Joffe: The Prince at The Exchange, Penzance
May 12, 2025On view 15 May–1 November 2025, the exhibition includes two major new bodies of work. The first series of four large-scale paintings shows Joffe’s partner,...Read More -
Chantal Joffe, Chris Ofili, Celia Paul and Paula Rego feature in Seeing Each Other: Portraits of Artists at Pallant House
May 6, 2025The exhibition (17 May–2 November 2025) brings together works that explore connections that have shaped British art and offer new perspectives on artistic circles. Read...Read More -
Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood, featuring Chantal Joffe, Wangechi Mutu, Celia Paul and Paula Rego, travels to Dundee Contemporary Arts
April 19, 2025Hayward Gallery Touring’s major group exhibition explores lived experience of motherhood through over 100 artworks. ★★★★★ Reviewing the exhibition in The Observer , Laura Cumming...Read More -
Anna Bjerger and Chantal Joffe: The Time Before at Gammel Strand, Copenhagen
June 18, 2024On view 21 June–8 September 2024, the exhibition explores painterly kinship and shared themes of friendship, loss and time passing in the artist’s work. Read...Read More -
Chantal Joffe and Do Ho Suh create work for Drawing Room’s Drawing Biennial 2024
May 3, 2024The exhibition and auction showcases around 300 drawings by artists who have generously donated works in support of Drawing Room’s mission.Read More -
Chantal Joffe creates a new edition in support of Studio Voltaire
March 20, 2024Titled Maggie's Song , the work depicts Joffe's daughter Esme playing guitar in their living room, and takes its name from one of Esme's songs....Read More -
Chantal Joffe creates a new, limited-edition print in support of Hospital Rooms
March 5, 2024Chantal Joffe has created this limited-edition etching to support the work of Hospital Rooms, a charity that transforms inpatient mental health units with contemporary art....Read More -
Chloë Ashby reviews Real Families: Stories of Change for The Guardian
October 9, 2023‘Among the best is Chantal Joffe, who remembers realising while she was studying at the Royal College of Art in the early 1990s not only...Read More -
On view in Cambridge: Real Families: Stories of Change, featuring Chantal Joffe, Alice Neel, Celia Paul, Grayson Perry and Paula Rego
October 5, 2023Bringing together more than 120 artworks spanning painting, photography, sculpture and film, the exhibition (6 October 2023–7 January 2024) asks us to consider what makes...Read More -
‘These paintings are not like any other paintings I’ve made’ – Chantal Joffe talks to AnOther
September 7, 2023 Read More -
The RA Summer Exhibition 2023 opens at the Royal Academy of Arts
June 13, 2023The RA Summer Exhibition is now open to the public at the R oyal Academy of Arts, London. On view are works by Victoria Miro...Read More -
Chantal Joffe features in Finding Family at the Foundling Museum
March 17, 2023This exhibition (17 March–27 August 2023) looks at the ways in which artists have represented and responded to ideas of family, past and present. Blood...Read More -
Chantal Joffe, Idris Khan and Conrad Shawcross create works for Cure Parkinson’s exhibition
January 10, 2023Works by Chantal Joffe, Idris Khan and Conrad Shawcross are included in Cure3 to raise funds for the charity Cure Parkinson’s . Curated by Artwise...Read More -
Chantal Joffe: Family Lexicon at Koo House, South Korea
August 24, 2022The exhibition (24 August– 4 December 2022) features a selection of works that depict the artist alongside significant figures in her life. Visit the Koo...Read More -
Chantal Joffe: A Sunday Afternoon in Whitechapel goes on view at Whitechapel station on the newly launched central section of the Elizabeth line
May 25, 2022The artwork reflects the local east London community enjoying a typical Sunday afternoon. The works were initially made as small-scale paper collages that were subsequently...Read More -
Group exhibition MOTHER! now open at the Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany
October 7, 2021Whether loving or distant, near or far, alive or dead, mothers are the source and existential beginning of human life. There is hardly another term...Read More -
Chantal Joffe: Story reviewed by Artforum
August 24, 2021Yes, it’s true, mothers are people too. “Most of the literature of infant care and psychology has assumed that the process toward individuation is essentially...Read More -
Chantal Joffe: Story reviewed by Studio International
June 22, 2021'Joffe is generous in what she shares in these paintings. Yes, they are closeup and personal. More than that, together they create a sensory and...Read More -
The Financial Times reviews Chantal Joffe: Story
June 9, 2021‘Joffe’s mother peers out from her hallway, huddled between luscious vertical stripes in red, beige, black. It is a painting about seeing, painting — focusing, framing an image — and the extent to which we allow a slice of ourselves to be known.’ – Jackie WullschlägerRead More -
Apollo: In the studio with… Chantal Joffe
June 8, 2021In her paintings and pastels, Chantal Joffe explores the lives and experiences of women. Whether drawn from life, from photographs or from other sources such...Read More -
Now live: The Artist’s Mother: Lucie and Daryll, featuring Lucian Freud and Chantal Joffe
March 3, 2021IMMA, The Irish Museum of Modern Art, presents a virtual exhibition (3 March-8 August 2021) available to view on Vortic and at imma.ie , followed...Read More -
Painting the personal: Chantal Joffe talks to Art UK
October 21, 2020Chantal Joffe has already been working in her studio for an hour or so when she answers the phone to me at 10am. Since the...Read More -
Country & Town House interview Chantal Joffe
September 25, 2020Chantal Joffe speaks with Sarah Hyde about her new show, For Esme – with Love and Squalor , on view at Arnolfini, Bristol. Read the...Read More -
‘Electric, Like Time Travel’: The New York Review of Books interviews Chantal Joffe
September 19, 2020‘I paint my daughter a lot, I always have, ever since she was born.’ Read The New York Review of Books full interview with Chantal...Read More -
Chantal Joffe: For Esme – with Love and Squalor, now open at Arnolfini, Bristol
August 25, 2020The exhibition (3 September–22 November 2020) explores the intimate act of painting and portraiture. Taking its name from J.D. Salinger’s short story For Esmé –...Read More -
Chantal Joffe talks to Ben Luke for The Art Newspaper’s A brush with… podcast
August 19, 2020In the latest in this new series of podcasts from The Art Newspaper, Ben Luke talks to Chantal Joffe about the cultural experiences that have...Read More -
Now reopen at the Foundling Museum – Portraying Pregnancy, featuring Chantal Joffe
July 8, 2020This major exhibition (now extended until 23 August 2020) explores representations of pregnancy through portraits from the past 500 years. Until the twentieth century, many...Read More -
Chantal Joffe creates a special cover for the RA Magazine
June 2, 2020For Summer 2020 issue of the magazine, produced as the RA closed its doors in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the...Read More -
The New York Times T Magazine commissions Chantal Joffe
February 19, 2020Work by Joffe was commissioned to accompany Megan O'Grady's essay on why tales of female trios are newly relevant. Joffe's painting Me, Em and Nat...Read More -
Chantal Joffe, Idris Khan, Grayson Perry and Conrad Shawcross donate works to Willow Foundation’s The Extraordinary Collection
August 7, 2019Works are available to view at a public exhibition at Coutts, The Strand (23-27 September 2019) and will be sold on behalf of Willow, a...Read More -
Chantal Joffe is included in Cut and Paste: 400 Years of Collage at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
June 29, 2019The exhibition (29 June–27 October 2019) is the first survey exhibition of collage ever to take place in Britain. It spans a period of more...Read More -
Chantal Joffe is featured in Downtown Painting: Presented by Alex Katz
May 21, 2019Alex Katz and Peter Freeman Inc. are pleased to announce Downtown Painting , a collaborative summer group exhibition (5 June–20 July 2019) echoing the spirit...Read More -
Waldemar Januszczak reviews Chantal Joffe in The Sunday Times
April 28, 2019'… there is something almost Manet-like in her ability to capture subtle and nuanced effects with brushstrokes 2in wide'Read More -
Sue Hubbard reviews Chantal Joffe in Artlyst
April 27, 2019'She charts the process of living and ageing, tracing the difficulties, disappointments and small victories it throws up like a series of maps on the landscape of the faces she paints.'Read More -
Olivia Laing writes about Chantal Joffe in the Paris Review
April 11, 2019Chantal Joffe’s Many Faces Here’s the setup: palette, chair, mirror. The mirror is bandaged together with red-and-white tape that says FRAGILE , but let’s not...Read More -
Chantal Joffe talks to Rowan Pelling in The Telegraph
April 6, 2019Within minutes of arriving at the Victoria Miro gallery to speak to Chantal Joffe, I’m telling her about my incipient menopause. This leads to a...Read More -
Now open: Childhood Now, featuring Chantal Joffe, at Compton Verney
March 16, 2019The exhibition (16 March–16 June 2019) features the work of three contemporary painters and partners Compton Verney's survey show Painting Childhood: From Holbein to Freud...Read More -
Collezione Maramotti opens its rehung galleries, featuring displays by Jules de Balincourt and Chantal Joffe
March 3, 2019For the first time since the opening of Collezione Maramotti in October 2007, ten rooms on the second floor of the permanent display have been...Read More -
Conrad Shawcross, Chantal Joffe and Yayoi Kusama create window installations for Selfridges in celebration of their forthcoming Crossrail commissions
January 10, 2019As a foretaste of their Crossrail commissions for the new Elizabeth Line, participating artists have been invited to create windows for Selfridges in Oxford Street,...Read More -
Chantal Joffe in Exposed: The Naked Portrait at Laing Art Gallery
October 25, 2018This exhibition (27 October 2018–3 March 2019) of works from the National Portrait Gallery collection invites questions about identity and gender, the real and ideal....Read More -
Chantal Joffe, Wangechi Mutu and Celia Paul feature in Contemporary Dialogues with Tintoretto at the Ca’ d’Oro, Venice
October 20, 2018The exhibition (20 October 2018–7 January 2019) focuses on dialogues between Tintoretto’s masterpieces preserved at Palazzo Ducale and Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca’ d’Oro, with...Read More -
Chantal Joffe is announced as a judge of the Evening Standard Art Prize
September 10, 2018Chantal Joffe’s studio near Old Street is everything you want an artist’s lair to be. A hive of activity, a place where magic happens, every...Read More -
The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2018, coordinated by Grayson Perry
June 12, 2018In addition to works by Perry, the exhibition (12 June–19 August 2018) also features Chantal Joffe, Isaac Julien, Idris Khan, Tal R and Conrad Shawcross....Read More -
Louise Benson writes about Chantal Joffe’s Herb at Sixteen as part of Elephant’s Contemporary Classics series
June 3, 2018The inevitable self-consciousness of tender teenage years is conjured in Herb at Sixteen, a portrait of a friend's son, as well as the vulnerability of...Read More -
Rachel Spence reviews Chantal Joffe: Personal Feeling Is The Main Thing in the Financial Times
May 29, 2018A sumptuous show at the Lowry in Salford pairs works by two artists depicting female experience. Long before #MeToo, many art lovers — mainly women...Read More -
Sue Hubbard writes about Chantal Joffe in The London Magazine
May 23, 2018I have long been interested in the work of Chantal Joffe and have written about her on several occasions. Her figurative paintings of family and...Read More -
Chantal Joffe: Personal Feeling is the Main Thing at The Lowry
May 19, 2018An exhibition (19 May–2 September 2018) of works from across Joffe's career addressing themes of portraiture, motherhood, passing time and art's relationship to history. Joffe...Read More -
Chantal Joffe talks to Hettie Judah in the i
May 18, 2018“I think portraiture or the painting of people is always an act of trying to do the impossible – imagining your way into somebody else,”...Read More -
‘Painting is a high-wire act’: Olivia Laing on sitting for Chantal Joffe
May 13, 2018While being painted, author Olivia Laing pens her own portrait of Chantal Joffe and hears why painting is like hairdressing Every time I go to...Read More -
The May issue of Apollo features a cover story interview with Chantal Joffe
April 25, 2018As she prepares for exhibitions at Victoria Miro Venice (14 April – 19 May 2018) and The Lowry (19 May – 2 September 2018), the artist discusses her most recent body of work with Harriet Baker.Read More -
Art Capital: Art for the Elizabeth line, featuring Chantal Joffe, Conrad Shawcross and Yayoi Kusama
March 13, 2018The exhibition (13 March – 6 May 2018) brings together unseen material by Joffe, Shawcross, Kusama and all the artists contributing to the Crossrail Art...Read More -
Olivia Laing writes in the Spring 2018 issue of Tate Etc about ageing bodies and her experience of modelling for Chantal Joffe
March 1, 2018Skin Bags Olivia Laing What do we see in the mirror? We all age, and yet we all battle agtainst the inexorable decline of our...Read More -
Chantal Joffe to create a major new work for the Elizabeth line station at Whitechapel
December 14, 2017The vibrant east London community around the new Elizabeth line station in Whitechapel is being reflected in a major work of art by award-wining artist...Read More -
Chantal Joffe in From Life at the Royal Academy of Arts
December 5, 2017Drawing from casts and life models was long considered essential training for any aspiring artist, and was once a staple of the Royal Academy’s own...Read More -
Chantal Joffe creates portraits of Jay-Z exclusively for T, the New York Times style magazine
November 29, 2017The works were created exclusively to accompany a cover feature interview with Jay-Z in T's December 3 Holiday Issue.Read More -
Works by Alice Neel and Chantal Joffe feature in ISelf Collection: The End of Love, at the Whitechapel Gallery
August 9, 201730 August – 26 November 2017 Gallery 7 Free Entry The Whitechapel Gallery’s new autumn 2017 collection display takes its name from Lebanese artist Akram...Read More -
Chantal Joffe in Hope and Hazard: A Comedy of Eros, curated by Eric Fischl, at Hall Art Foundation
May 1, 20176 May – 26 November 2017 The Hall Art Foundation is pleased to announce a group exhibition curated by American artist Eric Fischl to be...Read More -
Chantal Joffe donates work to the Jerwood Collection
March 15, 2017Look Back Now: Jerwood Gallery is 5 (15 March – 21 May 2017) This collection display, in Rooms 3 and 4, celebrates gallery's 5th birthday....Read More -
Chantal Joffe, Grayson Perry, Idris Khan and Conrad Shawcross create work for Ash to Art
February 15, 2017The four artists are among international names who have used materials recovered from The Glasgow School of Art fire to create new works of art...Read More -
Master Class: Chantal Joffe in conversation
February 13, 2017Master Class: Chantal Joffe in conversation with Gemma Blackshaw from Zabludowicz Collection on Vimeo . Chantal Joffe disccuses her emotive and humorous approach to portraiture...Read More -
Chantal Joffe reads extracts from David Wojnarowicz's Close to the Knives
February 13, 2017London Review Bookshop 14 Bury Pl London WC1A 2JL 14 March 2017, 7-8.30pm The artist and activist David Wojnarowicz died of AIDS-related illness in New...Read More -
Master Class: Chantal Joffe at Zabludowicz Collection
January 17, 20172 February, 7–9pm Testing Ground: Master Class invites leading international artists to share their expertise with a small group of emerging artists from around the...Read More -
Chantal Joffe and Tal R in Human Condition at the former Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center
November 9, 2016Human Condition (1 October - 30 November 2016) is an immersive, site-specific exhibition that features the work of over eighty emerging and established artists in...Read More -
Chantal Joffe and Celia Paul donate works to Harper's Bazaar UK auction
October 10, 2016To celebrate the publication of Bazaar Art , Harper's Bazaar UK have joined forces with the curator Hikari Yokoyama and 16 internationally renowened female artists,...Read More -
Chantal Joffe featured in Harper's Bazaar: What to see at Frieze 2016
September 29, 2016The prestigious art fairs Frieze London and Frieze Masters return to Regent's Park from 6 to 9 October; here's what to look out for this...Read More -
Chantal Joffe interviewed in The Telegraph
January 11, 2016Chantal Joffe: 'I don’t find men very interesting to look at’. By Alastair Sooke. 'I paint fast, in a kind of frenzy,” says the 46-year-old...Read More -
Chantal Joffe profiled in The Independent
February 22, 2015Chantal Joffe’s intimate self-portraits can be unflattering, but that is why they work. By Karen Wright. Karen Wright discovers that this is an artist to...Read More
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Books
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Gallery Exhibitions
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Chantal Joffe: The Eel
5 Sep – 21 Oct 2023 VeniceAn exhibition of new paintings completed this summer during a residency with the gallery in Venice.Learn More -
Unmasked
12 Feb – 27 Mar 2022 VeniceAn exhibition in Venice of works by Milton Avery, Jules de Balincourt, Hernan Bas, María Berrío, Chantal Joffe, Doron Langberg, Alice Neel and Celia Paul.Learn More -
Chantal Joffe: Story
4 Jun – 31 Jul 2021 London Gallery IIAccompanied by an artist’s book with a new text by Olivia Laing, Story features paintings of the artist’s mother and considers issues of aging, motherhood and visibility, focusing particularly on the complex relationship between mother and child over time.Learn More -
Chantal Joffe: Naked
17 Nov – 18 Dec 2020 Miro PresentsVictoria Miro is delighted to present a series of large-scale pastel self-portraits by Chantal Joffe, viewable online and on Vortic Collect .Learn More -
Chantal Joffe
11 Apr – 18 May 2019 London Gallery IIOn view at Wharf Road are large-scale canvases depicting the artist’s family and friends. The exhibition continues at Mayfair , featuring selections from a year of self-portraits completed during 2018....Learn More -
Chantal Joffe
11 Apr – 18 May 2019 Victoria Miro MayfairOn view at Victoria Miro Mayfair are selected self-portraits from a series begun in January 2018, by the acclaimed British painter Chantal Joffe. The exhibition continues at Wharf Road ,...Learn More -
Chantal Joffe: Pastels
14 Apr – 19 May 2018 VeniceAn exhibition of new and recent pastels by Chantal Joffe. This is the first exhibition by the artist comprising solely of pastel works on paper. ‘When you change the medium,...Learn More -
Chantal Joffe
22 Jan – 24 Mar 2016 Victoria Miro MayfairAn exhibition of new work by Chantal Joffe, in which celebrated writers keep company with the artist's friends and family members. Practising painting and drawing as the loving collection of...Learn More -
Chantal Joffe
19 Mar – 21 Apr 2011 London Gallery IThe exhibition centred around a powerful group of seven large-scale paintings where the artist restricted her palette to dark tones of black, red, blue and white. The works offer complex...Learn More -
In the Company of Alice
22 Jun – 30 Jul 2010 London Gallery I'If you do not solve your painting problem in painting human beings, you do not solve it at all'. Gertrude Stein Hernan Bas, John Currin, Verne Dawson, Peter Doig, Marlene...Learn More -
Chantal Joffe
24 Jun – 2 Aug 2008 London Gallery IChantal Joffe is well known for her expressive paintings of predominantly female figures. This latest exhibition will include an eclectic and wide-ranging group of subjects across two distinct bodies of...Learn More -
Chantal Joffe
19 Nov – 17 Dec 2005 London Gallery IKnown for her expressive studies of women and children, these new large panels represent a move away from the intimacy characteristic of Chantal Joffe's previous work, and into a realm...Learn More -
Chantal Joffe
Women 4 Apr – 7 May 2003 London Gallery I'Joffe is effortlessly fluent in her descriptions of human emotions through manipulated external appearances... she shows the inherent gormlessness to which we are all susceptible, no matter how cool, which...Learn More -
Raw
7 May – 30 Jun 2000 London Gallery IYayoi Kusama. Francesca Woodman, Robin Lowe, Adriana Varejão, Isaac Julien, Doug Aitken, Abigail Lane, Hadrian Pigott, Brad Lochore, Cecily Brown, Chris Ofili, Andreas Gursky, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Inez van Lamsweerde,...Learn More -
Chantal Joffe
12 Jan – 4 Feb 2000 Victoria Miro Cork StreetThis show of recent work by Chantal Joffe continues the small individual figure studies for which she has enjoyed such success, but now with the addition of some larger works... -
Chantal Joffe
4 Apr – 2 May 1997 Victoria Miro Cork Street'The paintings are small format works with a figure or figures, usually partially cropped. I would like to think they are making something beautiful out of something trashy and perhaps...
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