Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Shirley Jaffe moved to Brooklyn following the early death of her father. She studied at Cooper Union in New York, earning a certificate in 1945, and later continued her education at the Phillips Art School in Washington, D.C. In 1949, after marrying Irving Jaffe, she relocated to Paris—a move that would prove definitive, as she remained there for the rest of her life.
Jaffe began her artistic career in the 1950s as an abstract expressionist, creating gestural, dynamic works defined by bold brushwork and vibrant color. A pivotal moment came in the early 1960s, when a Ford Foundation grant enabled her to spend a year in Berlin. Immersed in the city's tense political atmosphere and avant-garde musical scene, she underwent a significant transformation. Her style shifted toward a geometric, hard-edged abstraction, marked by flat, saturated colors and sharply delineated forms—rectangles, trapezoids, and irregular shapes—composed with a lively yet meticulous sense of balance.
Her mature work is characterized by a vibrant palette, architectural precision, and a carefully calibrated visual equilibrium in which each element contributes to an overall cohesion. Though her compositions are deeply informed by the visual energy of urban life, particularly the structure and tempo of Paris, they remain firmly non-representational. Critics have frequently described Jaffe's work as “idiosyncratic” and “timeless,” recognizing her refusal to conform to a single artistic movement in favor of a distinct, highly personal visual language.