Marcus Jansen was born 1968 in Manhattan, New York, while residing in the South Bronx and was later educated in Germany.
Jansen is one of a handful of international artists and leading combatant of the avant-garde, who’s paintings are situated between contemporary and street or graffiti art elements that explore and document the human condition critically, socially and politically..
A former US soldier, Jansen transformed his life from a soldier to being one of the “most important American Painters of his generation,” noted by leading Documenta Kassel curator and Art Historian, Prof Dr Manfred Schneckenburger.
Jansen was discovered by the Museum Director of the American Vanguard Exhibitions Europe 1961, Jerome A. Donson, who referred to Jansen's work as being "reminiscent of the Ash-Can School” and named him the “innovator of modern expressionism" in 2005.
Books on Jansen’s work have been published by art book publishers Skira Editore Milan and Hirmer Verlag Munich and his first critically acclaimed documentary was filmed in 2016 titled “Marcus Jansen Examine and Report” by Emmy award winning filmmaker John Scholar.
Jansen was first influenced by art as a child while watching subway trains passing his Soundview neighborhood on Boynton Avenue in the South Bronx in the 1970’s, where he first saw cartoon-like characters and writings starting to appear on otherwise dull subway trains that changed the city’s environment permanently.
Jansen’s public collections include the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA), The New Britain Museum of American Art, The PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art, The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, the Housatonic Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.
Jansen is one of a handful of international artists and leading combatant of the avant-garde, who’s paintings are situated between contemporary and street or graffiti art elements that explore and document the human condition critically, socially and politically..
A former US soldier, Jansen transformed his life from a soldier to being one of the “most important American Painters of his generation,” noted by leading Documenta Kassel curator and Art Historian, Prof Dr Manfred Schneckenburger.
Jansen was discovered by the Museum Director of the American Vanguard Exhibitions Europe 1961, Jerome A. Donson, who referred to Jansen's work as being "reminiscent of the Ash-Can School” and named him the “innovator of modern expressionism" in 2005.
Books on Jansen’s work have been published by art book publishers Skira Editore Milan and Hirmer Verlag Munich and his first critically acclaimed documentary was filmed in 2016 titled “Marcus Jansen Examine and Report” by Emmy award winning filmmaker John Scholar.
Jansen was first influenced by art as a child while watching subway trains passing his Soundview neighborhood on Boynton Avenue in the South Bronx in the 1970’s, where he first saw cartoon-like characters and writings starting to appear on otherwise dull subway trains that changed the city’s environment permanently.
Jansen’s public collections include the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA), The New Britain Museum of American Art, The PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art, The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, the Housatonic Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.