Biography

Artist renown, and world traveler, has chosen to take up residence in the Flathead because of its rural life style and its appreciation of the art community. Following his introduction to this area of Carmens, through Montana Art shows, Mr. Baden has opened his own gallery in order to bring pleasure through art to the lives of his friends. 

Jenner was born on South Island, New Zealand, of Maori and British descent, and has painted continuously since the age of 7. He attended formal schooling in England, which accounts for his particular dialect, and thereafter traveled extensively in the British Isles, Western Europe and, prior to the Second World War, traveled throughout India, the Himalayas, and Java, ever searching for subject matter and developing his technique as an artist with a true photographic memory. 

In the Pyranees of south France, he was acquainted and painted with Salvador Dali for two months, admiring him greatly as a professional at work and play - in his merchandising effort and in his personal life. 

During the Second World War, Jenner served in the Royal Engineers, Intelligence Unit, attaining the rank of Sgt. Major and traveling throughout the Eurasian countries again. 

Commonly called an "impressionist," Jenner has developed his own style of the "realist school" which he refers to as "twice removed." The style brought him to the attention (in 1955 in the Bahamas) of Huntington Hartford III, world art and literature critic, who purchased a "Baden" for his personal collection, inviting the artist to New York City where he owns the Hartford Museum. There, he introduced Jenner to the Art community of New York. A one man show was held at the Leo Partridge Gallery, of which Mr. Partridge (another world renown art critic) compared Jenner to Rembrandt, the master as a "painter of light." 

Returning to Hawaii, Jenner took up his style again at the Kona Beach, reflecting his subjective life in the South Pacific and in New Zealand and Tahiti for several years. In 1967 he won newspaper acclaim for the finest show on the island since Gaugiun. 

In his tour of the United States, begun in 1959, Jenner held shows in Washington, D.C. at the Washington Gallery of Art, which was attended by Jackie Kennedy along with members of the Diplomatic Corps. In another session in London, the Daily Mirror had a lead article on Jenner's work - "Do you have a Baden?" A recent work was a story by John Mills (of Hollywood fame) entitled "The Many Faces of Jenner Baden." 

Returning to the United States, through Arizona and California, Jenner's work is influenced by the desert scenes and frontiers of America. He traveled through Utah, painting everywhere a new subject existed, and arrived at Spokane for Expo '74 and a fine engagement at Knotts Supper Club. Following the close of Expo, Jenner was brought to the Flathead by Montana Art Shows, where he worked a short time before establishing his gallery. 

His style can be traced to Polynesian beginnings, as he worked many years in Tahiti (as Gauguin worked many years before), winning acclaim in 1967 for the "Finest Show since Gauguin." Because of his uncanny manipulation of the palette knives, his only tools, and his knowledge and use of vivid color, light and shadow, the well-defined use of form and composition, he was described in the Santa Rosa News (California) ie: 

Meeting Jenner Baden and watching him work is as interesting an experience as a trip through the kaleidoscope - which is his art gallery!"