Nina Childress (born 1961 in Pasadena, CA) is one of the most renowned and celebrated French painters of her generation. Always reinventing herself and embracing all modes of representation, Childress has explored painting in abstraction and hyperrealism, magnified everyday objects, and created introspective self-portraits.
Childress studied at Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Paris (ENSAD), and at Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts de Paris, where she currently teaches and was appointed Chairman in 2019. In 2021, she was nominated for the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor for her career in the arts. Childress’ work has been shown nationally and internationally, most notably at MAMCO (Geneva), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Centre Régional d’Art Contemporain (Sète), Fondation d’entreprise Ricard (Paris), FRAC Limousin-Artothèque (Limoges), and FRAC Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA (Bordeaux) where she had a major retrospective in 2022.
In March 2024, Nina Childress was one of the first women ever elected at l’Académie des Beaux-Arts in the painting section. Childress’ monograph, 1081 Peintures, has a phosphorescent cover and displays a chronological account of her entire body of work from 1980-2021; a biography written by Fabienne Radi accompanies it. This double monograph will be displayed and for sale throughout the Glowing Heads exhibition at L’Alliance New York.