David Jenks's Bio

Born in 1943, David Jenks grew up and studied in Massachusetts, graduating from Williams College with an Art History degree in 1965. He also attended the Yale Summer School of Music and Art and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

His childhood memories include his mother at a drawing board doing freelance commercial art at home. He started drawing at an early age, particularly inspired by the illustrations of N. C. Wyeth and Howard Pyle in books from his father's childhood.

Entering college with the idea of a career in architecture, he changed course in mid-stream and graduated as an aspiring fine artist. But it was not until the mid-1980s that he made a full commitment to painting. The intervening years saw various detours into the pop culture of the day and then stints as a carpenter, including four years at Hollywood film studios when his two children were born.

A year in Somerset in the Southwest of England, provided a new beginning and he started painting outdoors in 1983. Plein air painting back in California was climaxed by a year-and-a-half on the Big Sur and Mendocino coasts and his first one-man show at the Stary-Sheets Gallery in 1986. Since 1993 he has made the town of Mendocino his home, deriving his greatest inspiration from the sea.

David Jenks's paintings have been featured in galleries across the country and in Japan. Articles on his work have appeared in SOUTHWEST ART and AMERICAN ARTIST. Several of his images have been published, most prominently by the New York Graphic Society; and his paintings hang in a number of corporate collections including MBNA America, Fluor Corporation, and Raymond James Financial, Inc.

David Jenks

P.O. Box 516

Mendocino, CA 95460

Website: www.djenks.com

Email address: djenks@mcn.org