Richard Deacon

Richard Deacon, born in 1949, in Bangor, Wales, UK, from an early stage in his career, began experimenting with different media and forms of expression. Drawing and writing, quickly became an integral part of his artistic method, and are central to his documentation of performance. In his sculptural work, Deacon uses a wide range of materials, including laminated plywood, concrete, stainless steel, plastics, and clay. His structures emerge from a keen interest in the characteristics of the materials themselves, allowing him to play with the ways in which their forms relate to human association and sensory experience. Seeming initially abstract at times, the sculptures’ forms billow, churn, and ripple, approximating the anatomical, suggesting recognizable or organic shapes to the viewer without ever collapsing completely into the already familiar.

Richard Deacon received his training at the Somerset College of Art in Taunton, St. Martins School of Art, Chelsea School or Art and the Royal College or Art in London. He is the recipient of the 1987 Turner Prize and has been made Commander of the British Empire in 1996. In 2017, he was awarded the Ernst Franz Vogelmann-Preis für Skulptur. In 2004, he was awarded the Will-Grohmann-Preis. In 1997, he was awarded the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the Ministry of Culture in France, and in 1998 was elected a Royal Academician. The Akademie der Künste in Berlin elected him a member in 2010. He has held professorships at the Ecole Normale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris, the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, and other institutions. Alongside numerous solo exhibitions in museums in Europe, the US, and Asia, he has participated in many of the most significant survey exhibitions including the Carnegie International, documenta 9 (1992), and Skulptur Projekte Münster (1987). Recent solo exhibitions include the New Art Centre, Salisbury (2021), Prague City Gallery (2017), Middelheimmuseum (2017), Langen Foundation and Skulpturenhalle Thomas Schütte in Neuss (2016), Museum Folkwang (2016), Kunstmuseum Winterthur (2015), Tate Britain (2014), University of New Mexico Art Museum (2011), and Sprengel Museum (2011). Recent group exhibitions include Creative Folkestone Triennial 2021, Folkestone, UK, Fundación Bancaja, Valencia (2021), National Museum of Art, Cardiff, Wales (2017). His works can be found in leading collections including Tate, Centre George Pompidou, Museo Reina Sofía, Kunstmuseum Basel, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Stedelijk Museum, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Hiroshima Museum of Art, Kröller-Müller Museum, MCA, Chicago, MoMA, SFMOMA, Walker Art Gallery, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Richard Deacon lives and works in London.