WATTS INDEXThe canonical database of visual culture

Artists›Jay DeFeo

Jay DeFeo

1929–1989

WA-00003700

Representation

None documented

Institutional Exhibitions

Works in Collection

Assets Indexed

Authority-backed Facts

Publications Referenced

80%

Profile Completeness

Cultural Positioning

Influence Graph

No influence edges encoded yet.

Authority Records (2)

WikidataQ15522104

MoMA

Selected Institutional Exhibitions

View all exhibitions →

No image

Garnets on the Boulder

Paula Cooper Gallery

2025

No image

Inventing Objects

Paula Cooper Gallery

2023

Field Verification (7 fields)

2 cross-verified · 5 single-source

Birth yearWikidata + Duplicate Merge+1· 92%✓
Death yearDuplicate Merge + Gallery· 85%✓
NationalityWikidata + Gallery· 92%
LocationWikidata + Gallery· 80%
BiographyGallery Generic + Gallery· 72%
Profile imageGallery· 60%
Primary mediumGallery· 60%

Source Registry (3)

Paula-Cooperhttps://www.artsy.net/artist/jay-defeo
Tier 3 · Scraped/inferred100%
Sothebyshttps://www.sothebys.com/en/artists/jay-defeo
Tier 3 · Scraped/inferred100%
MoMA bulk 2026-05-04https://www.moma.org/artists/7694
Tier 1 · Institutional92%

About

Why this artist matters now

No biography available for Jay DeFeo yet.

Graph relationships

Taste overlap and adjacency

Movement

—

Medium

—

Related Artists

6 in graph

Institutional

Museum Collections

Art Institute of Chicago Whitney Museum of American Art

Canonical record

Artworks (20)

Untitled

1982 · Photocopy cut-and-pasted on colored paper

sheet: 23 13/16 × 17 7/8" (60.5 × 45.4 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

van der Weyden

1980 · Pencil on paper

sheet: 13 9/16 × 10 7/8" (34.4 × 27.7 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Untitled

1980 · Pencil and acrylic on paper

sheet: 13 3/4 × 10 13/16" (35 × 27.5 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

WattsOS

Untitled (Tripod)

1977 · Acrylic, pencil, and charcoal on paper

Museum of Modern Art

Untitled (Tripod)

1976 · Cut paper with acrylic, oil crayon, ink, pencil, and pressure-sensitive tape pinned to paper

14 x 11" (35.6 x 27.9 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Untitled (tripod)

1975 · Gelatin silver print

Sheet: 8 × 4 15/16 in. (20.3 × 12.5 cm) Image: 8 × 4 15/16 in. (20.3 × 12.5 cm)

Whitney Museum of American Art

Untitled

1975 · Cut-and-pasted gelatin silver prints with pencil on matboard wrapped in plastic

7 3/8 × 7 1/2" (18.7 × 19.1 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Cygnus (Loop System No. 3)

1975 · Acrylic, graphite, charcoal, watercolor, ink, oil pastel, paper, and tape on hardboard, two panels

Overall 8 × 8' (243.8 × 243.8 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Study for Loop System

1974 · Acrylic on paper

17 7/8 × 23 7/8" (45.4 × 60.6 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Untitled (Nervous Breakdown Couch for Ruth)

1973 · Gelatin silver print

Image: 18.3 × 18.2 cm (7 1/4 × 7 3/16 in.); Paper, approx: 25.7 × 20.4 cm (10 1/8 × 8 1/16 in.)

Art Institute of Chicago

Untitled (Salvador Dalí's Birthday Party)

1973 · Gelatin silver print chemigram

9 7/8 × 7 7/8" (25.1 × 20 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Untitled (Salvador Dalí's Birthday Party)

1973 · Gelatin silver print chemigram

9 7/8 × 7 7/8" (25.1 × 20 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Untitled (Salvador Dalí's Birthday Party)

1973 · Gelatin silver print chemigram

9 7/8 × 7 7/8" (25.1 × 20 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Untitled

1971 · Gelatin silver print

Image/paper: 14.9 × 21.8 cm (5 7/8 × 8 5/8 in.); Mount: 21.5 × 25.3 cm (8 1/2 × 10 in.)

Art Institute of Chicago

WattsOS

Study for The Rose

1959 · Graphite and gelatin silver print on paper

Sheet (sight): 5 × 3 3/4 in. (12.7 × 9.5 cm) Image (sight): 4 1/4 × 3 1/4 in. (10.8 × 8.3 cm)

Whitney Museum of American Art

WattsOS

Untitled

1959 · Gelatin silver print

Sheet (sight): 6 1/2 × 6 1/4 in. (16.5 × 15.9 cm) Image (sight): 6 1/2 × 6 1/4 in. (16.5 × 15.9 cm)

Whitney Museum of American Art

WattsOS

The Rose

1958 · Oil with wood and mica on canvas

Overall: 128 7/8 × 92 1/4 × 11 in. (327.3 × 234.3 × 27.9 cm)

Whitney Museum of American Art

Blossom

1958 · Collage of photomechanical reproductions

43 1/8 × 33 7/8" (109.5 × 86 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

The Annunciation

1957 · Oil on canvas

306.7 × 189.2 cm (120 3/4 × 74 1/2 in.)

Art Institute of Chicago

Untitled (Florence)

1952 · Gouache, watercolor, and ink on paper

14 x 12 1/2" (35.6 x 31.8 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

View all 20 artworks →

Artwork sources (3)

20 published of 33 catalogued · 29 with image

MoMA
13 publishedof 26 catalogued25 img
Whitney
4 published1 img
Art Institute Chicago
3 published3 img

Record

Images

Artsy

Wikipedia

Untitled gelatin silver print collage by Jay DeFeo, 1973, Honolulu Museum of Art

Wikimedia Commons (Instagram fallback)

Jay DeFeo, Tending and Dreaming Stories from the Collection, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose CA 03

Wikimedia Commons (Instagram fallback)

Wikipedia

Relationships

Collections3

Art Institute of Chicago Whitney Museum of American Art Paula Cooper Gallery

Institutional

Representation & Collections

Gallery

Paula Cooper Gallery

In collection

Art Institute of Chicago

In collection

Whitney Museum of American Art

Background

Education

University of California, Berkeley

Visual Arts

San Jose High School

Visual Arts

Record

Exhibitions and timeline

Solo Exhibition Garnets on the Boulder

2025

Solo Exhibition Inventing Objects

2023