Artists

Antony Gormley, R.A. (b. 1950)

Gormley was born in London and between his education at Trinity College, Cambridge (1968-1971), where he read archaeology, anthropology and history of art, and his time at Goldsmiths College (1975-1977) and then the Slade (1977-1979), Gormley travelled to India where he studied Buddhist meditation (1971-74).

He has produced a distinctive collection of work using his own body as subject, material and tool and his best known works include Field for the British Isles (1992), an installation of 35,000 clay figures; Another Place (1997), 100 cast iron figures facing the horizon on the coastal mud-flats at Cuxhaven, Germany; and The Angel of the North (1998) sited by the A1, near Gateshead.

Gormley explores through sculpture, and his accompanying writings, what it feels like to be human and his works reflect physical, emotional and psychological states of being, often in relation to surrounding landscapes.

Since his first solo exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, in 1981, Gormley's work has been exhibited worldwide and is included in numerous public and private collections. He has won both the Turner Prize (1994) and the South Bank Prize (1999). In 1998 he was awarded the OBE for services to sculpture.

Select Bibliography

I. Sinclair and S. Brown, Making an Angel, Booth-Clibborn Editions, London, 1998.
R. Calvocoressi, exhibition catalogue, Antony Gormley, Louisiana, Humlebaek, Denmark, Museum of Modern Art, 1989.
Exhibition catalogue, Field for the British Isles, Oriel Mostyn Gallery, Llandudno, 1994.
Exhibition catalogue, Critical Mass, Royal Academy of Art, London, 1998.
J. Hutchinson, E.H. Gombrich, E.H., L.B. Njatin, W.J.T. Mitchell, Antony Gormley, Phaidon Press, London, 1995, second edition revised and expanded, 2000.