Paul Jenkins (July 12, 1923 – June 9, 2012) was an American abstract expressionist painter.
Jenkins described himself as an “abstract phenomenist,” and while he is classified as an abstract expressionist.
In 1948, he studied at the Art Students League of New York. During that time, he met Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock and in 1953. During this time Jenkins achieved international prominence for his early abstractions. His first solo exhibition in New York was in 1956 with the Martha Jackson Gallery, and with the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York purchasing a painting from the exhibition success followed. In 1959, Peggy Guggenheim purchased a Paul Jenkins painting from the artist's studio in Paris further cementing his status.