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Oliver Osborne: The Card Players

Oliver Osborne: The Card Players

June 5-July 11, 2026

Opening reception: June 5, 5-7pm

Jessica Silverman is pleased to announce Berlin-based painter Oliver Osborne’s first solo exhibition in San Francisco, “The Card Players,” on view June 5 through July 11, 2026. Featuring new oil and acrylic paintings on herringbone linen, the exhibition situates the artist’s personal circle within the long arc of historical painting. Employing references to the Renaissance and Baroque periods, Osborne’s work is at once spectral and grounded by materiality.

Before approaching the canvas, Osborne’s process begins with a preparatory practice of collaging cutouts of figures from 15th and 17th-century paintings alongside photographs of his own children. Translating these compositions into oil and acrylic, depictions of his children mirror painterly tropes, such as the sleeping guard figure commonly found in Italian frescoes, or the card games seen throughout historical group portraiture. Through these interventions, dormant characters from centuries ago become newly intimate, and Osborne becomes an active agent in shaping the history of painting. He chronicles his family with an artistic language that energizes and reconfigures, taking the viewer on an odyssey to revisit the past with an eye towards future possibilities of painting.

 

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INSTALLATION VIEW
SELECTED WORKS
ARTIST BIO
OTHER EXHIBITIONS

INSTALLATION VIEW

SELECTED WORKS

Oliver Osborne
Arezzo (The Sleeping Guard), 2026
Oil and acrylic on herringbone linen
60 5/8 x 35 x 2 3/8 inches / 154 x 89 x 6 cm
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Oliver Osborne, Arezzo (The Sleeping Guard)
In all of the works, herringbone linen surfaces and black, bevel-edged frames impart a sense of material vitality. Made thin through repeated sanding and layering, the herringbone weave remains visible beneath washes of yellow, green, red, and brown. The effect fuses atmospheric depth and tactility. In a nearly 5-foot-tall painting, Arezzo (The Sleeping Guard) (2026), one of the artist’s children is posed as a Renaissance-era sleeping guard. The figure’s slumped head rests against a spear or staff, boldly cutting through the hazy yellow glow of a dream-like color field. In the background, a faint tree suggests a distant landscape—a quiet revelation that rewards observation.
Oliver Osborne
The Card Players, 2026
Oil and acrylic on herringbone linen
35 x 21 1/4 x 2 3/8 inches / 89 x 54 x 6 cm
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Oliver Osborne, The Card Players
Oliver Osborne
Sleeping Guards, 2026
Oil and acrylic on herringbone linen
46 7/8 x 31 1/8 x 2 3/8 inches / 119 x 79 x 6 cm
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Oliver Osborne, Sleeping Guards
The exhibition’s eponymous work, The Card Players (2026), portrays a vertical close-up of the artist’s eldest son playing cards. While traditional Baroque card-playing motifs depict social dynamics amongst groups, Osborne retools the interaction, trading distant historical symbolism for tender proximity to his child. In the top right corner, another boy’s shadowy face appears in a style referencing that of 17th-century painter Diego Velázquez. The pairing suggests a game Osborne’s figures play across time.
Oliver Osborne
Alfie (with The Sleeping Guard and Leaves), 2026
Oil and acrylic on herringbone linen
15 3/8 x 17 3/8 x 2 3/8 inches / 39 x 44 x 6 cm
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Oliver Osborne, Alfie (with The Sleeping Guard and Leaves)
Oliver Osborne
Alfie (with The Sleeping Guard and Leaves), 2026
Oil and acrylic on herringbone linen
15 3/8 x 17 3/8 x 2 3/8 inches / 39 x 44 x 6 cm
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Oliver Osborne, Alfie (with The Sleeping Guard and Leaves)
Oliver Osborne
Velázquez Boy (With Leaves), 2026
Oil and acrylic on herringbone linen
15 3/8 x 17 3/8 x 2 3/8 inches / 39 x 44 x 6 cm
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Oliver Osborne, Velázquez Boy (With Leaves)
Oliver Osborne
Alfie (with The Sleeping Guard and Leaves), 2026
Oil and acrylic on herringbone linen
15 3/8 x 17 3/8 x 2 3/8 inches / 39 x 44 x 6 cm
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Oliver Osborne, Alfie (with The Sleeping Guard and Leaves)
Oliver Osborne
Alfie (with The Sleeping Guard and Leaves), 2026
Oil and acrylic on herringbone linen
15 3/8 x 17 3/8 x 2 3/8 inches / 39 x 44 x 6 cm
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Oliver Osborne, Alfie (with The Sleeping Guard and Leaves)
Oliver Osborne
Velázquez Boy (With Leaves), 2026
Oil and acrylic on herringbone linen
15 3/8 x 17 3/8 x 2 3/8 inches / 39 x 44 x 6 cm
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Oliver Osborne, Velázquez Boy (With Leaves)
In Multi-Figure Composition with Leaf (2026), repetition becomes a means of transformation and rediscovery. Five figures press against the picture plane in a dense, psychologically charged composition. Osborne revisits recurring motifs through the exhibition: his children reappear as the sleeping guard and the card player, their faces emerging through reddish-brown shadows and yellow-green light. Other figures, including the recurring boy borrowed from Velázquez, introduce layered historical references that deepen the work’s spatial and emotional complexity. Across shifting textures and translucent washes, past and present continually converge.
Oliver Osborne
Alfie , 2026
Oil and acrylic on herringbone linen
13 3/8 x 11 3/8 x 2 3/8 inches / 34 x 29 x 6 cm
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Oliver Osborne, Alfie
Oliver Osborne
Kit, Alfie, Leaves, 2025
Oil and acrylic on herringbone linen
13 3/8 x 11 3/8 x 2 3/8 inches / 34 x 28.9 x 6 cm
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Oliver Osborne, Kit, Alfie, Leaves
Through elevated renditions of everyday family life, Osborne repositions art history as a living, malleable language. “The Card Players” reveals an artist deeply invested in painting’s lineage—one he simultaneously honors, dismantles, and remakes.
Oliver Osborne (b. 1985, Edinburgh) studied at Chelsea College of Art and the Royal Academy Schools in London. In 2025, he enjoyed his first major institutional exhibition at ICA Milano, Italy, which was accompanied by a monograph. His work is in the public collections of Aishti Foundation, Beirut; Braunsfelder Family Collection, Cologne; The David and Indré Roberts Collection, London; Haubrok Foundation, Berlin; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; and The Saatchi Collection, London. Osborne is currently based in Berlin, Germany. He is represented by Tanya Leighton, Berlin and Los Angeles, and Union Pacific, London.
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