Jeanne Reynal

Reynal was born in 1903 in White Plains, New York.[4] She was the second of five children.[4] When Reynal was nine years old, her parents separated.[4] She moved to Millbrook, New York with her father where she was taught by a governess.[4] Her other siblings continued to live with her mother.[4]

At the age of twenty-four, Reynal spent a summer to England, France, and Italy with her siblings and her mother.[4] It was during this trip that Reynal first met the Russian mosaicist Boris Anrep.[4] Two years later, Reynal began an apprenticeship with Anrep in Europe after assisting him with a mosaic he installed in the Bank of England.[4] The two also became romantically involved until Anrep left Reynal for a wealthy Englishwoman.[4] The two only saw each other once after this separation.[4] According to a series of letters written back and forth with Arshile Gorky, Reynal also studied under the painter.[5]

Reynal left Paris in 1937 and moved to California, where she worked in a potting shed in Marin County.[4] She then moved to the High Sierras, where she built a house and studio.[4]

After living in California for eight years, Reynal returned to her Greenwich Village, New York. studio in 1946.[4]

She married the painter Thomas Sills in 1953.[6]

Reynal was known as a pioneer of mosaics during the New York Abstract Expressionist Movement. Her work prompted a rebirth of ancient mosaic techniques in the modern art world. In addition, Reynal freed the mosaic from the traditional confines of architectural settings. Reynal embraced the layered effect of mosaics, as they could stand alone, be apart of architecture, or engage with nature.[7] She was inspired by Byzantine mosaics as well as artwork by Mexican, Greek, and American Southwestern artists. Her work discusses mythology through a culturally modern setting.[8] In this way, her mosaic work became accessible to the contemporary art world.