Sir Michael Craig-Martin
An Oak Tree by Michael Craig-Martin
Born (1941-08-28) 28 August 1941
Dublin, Ireland
Nationality
  • Ireland
  • UK
EducationYale University
Known for
Notable workAn Oak Tree
MovementConceptualism
ChildrenJessica Craig-Martin[1]
Websitemichaelcraigmartin.co.uk

Sir Michael Craig-Martin CBE RA (born 28 August 1941) is an Irish-born contemporary conceptual artist and painter.[2][3] He is known for fostering and adopting the Young British Artists, many of whom he taught, and for his conceptual artwork, An Oak Tree. He is an Emeritus Professor of Fine Art at Goldsmiths.[4] His memoir and advice for the aspiring artist, On Being An Artist, was published by London-based publisher Art / Books in April 2015.[5]

Early life and career

Michael Craig-Martin was born in Dublin, but spent most of his childhood in Washington, D.C.[6][1] For eight years, he attended a Roman Catholic school, which was run by nuns, followed by the English Benedictine Priory School (now St. Anselm's Abbey School), where pupils were encouraged to look at religious imagery in illuminated glass panels and stained-glass windows.[7] He gained an interest in art through one of the priests, who was an artist, and was also strongly impressed by a display in the Phillips Collection of work by Mark Rothko.[7]

Craig-Martin studied in Lycée Français in Bogotá, Colombia, where his father had employment for a while. Drawing classes in the Lycée by an artist, Antonio Roda, gave him a wider perspective on art.[7] His parents had no inclinations towards art, although they did have on display in their home Picasso's Greedy Child.[8][9] Back in Washington, he attended drawing classes given there by artists, then in 1959 attended Fordham University in New York for English Literature and History, while also starting to paint.[8]

In mid-1961 Craig-Martin studied art at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris,[10] and in the autumn he began a painting course at Yale University, where the teaching was strongly influenced by the multi-disciplinary experimentation and minimalist theories on colour and form of Josef Albers, a former head of department. Craig-Martin later said, "Everything I know about colour comes from that course". Tutors on the course included artists Alex Katz and Al Held.[8]

Work

Michael Craig-Martin (left), and Keith Milow at the "varnishing day" R.A. Summer Exhibition 2015

Craig-Martin has lived and worked in London since 1966.[11] From his early box-like constructions of the late 1960s, he moved increasingly to the use of ordinary household objects. In the late 1970s he began to make line drawings of ordinary objects, creating over the years an ever-expanding vocabulary of images which form the foundation of his work to this day. During the 1990s the focus of his work shifted decisively to painting, with the same range of boldly outlined motifs and vivid color schemes applied both to works on canvas, and to increasingly complex installations of wall paintings.[12]

An Oak Tree

In 1973, he exhibited the seminal piece An Oak Tree.[13] The work consists of a glass of water standing on a shelf attached to the gallery wall, next to which is a text using an argument to explain why it is in fact an oak tree. Nevertheless, on one occasion when it was barred by Australian Customs officials from entering the country as vegetation, he was forced to explain it was really a glass of water.[14] The work was bought by the National Gallery of Australia in 1977, and the Tate gallery has an artist's copy.[14]

Young British Artists

From 1973, Craig-Martin was a tutor at Goldsmiths College and,[15] during the 1980s, was a significant influence on the emerging YBA generation, including Damien Hirst.[16] He was also helpful in promoting the Freeze show to established art-world figures. In 1995, he curated Drawing the Line: a comprehensive touring exhibition on the history of line drawing at the Southbank Centre, London.[17] Craig-Martin and his influence were described in an article in the Observer regarding the mentors of British art, entitled Schools of Thought.[18] Craig-Martin has been a trustee of the Tate Gallery and is a trustee of the National Art Collections Fund.

Later work

Craig-Martin's London Underground roundel design at Southwark Station in celebration of the new Tate Modern.

Since 2011, Craig-Martin has been working on powder-coated steel forms that describe everyday objects and appear like line drawings in the air.[19] The first series was shown in the gardens of Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, in 2014, where the sculptures were sunk into the soil of the grounds.[20]

Exhibitions

Craig-Martin had his first one-man exhibition at the Rowan Gallery in London in 1969. Since then, he has shown regularly both in the UK and abroad. He represented Britain at the São Paulo Art Biennial in 1998.[17] His solo museum exhibitions include “Always Now,” Kunstverein Hannover (1998); IVAM, Valencia (2000); “Living,” Sintra Museum of Modern Art, Portugal (2001); “Signs of Life,” Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2006); and “Less Is Still More,” Museum Haus Esters, Krefeld, Germany (2013).[21] He made his American debut in the "Projects" series at the Museum of Modern Art.[11]

A mural by Craig-Martin

A retrospective of Craig-Martin's work took place at the Whitechapel Gallery in London in 1989. In 2006, the Irish Museum of Modern Art presented "Michael Craig-Martin: Works 1964–2006" which included works from over 40 years of Craig-Martin's career. The exhibition showed around 50 paintings, sculptures, wall drawings, neon works and text pieces by the artist, covering everything from his sculptures to digital works. One of his works called On the Table (1970) involved four metal buckets suspended on a table, exemplifying the influence of Minimalism and Conceptualism on Craig-Martin. An Oak Tree (1973), consisting of "an ordinary glass of water on an equally plain shelf, accompanied by a text in which Craig-Martin asserts the supremacy of the artist's intention over the object itself ... is now widely regarded as a turning point in the development of conceptual art".[22]

In 2015, Craig-Martin's exhibition "Transience" at the Serpentine Galleries brought together works from 1981 to 2015, including representations of once familiar yet obsolete technology; laptops, games consoles, black-and-white televisions and incandescent lightbulbs that highlighted the increasing transience of technological innovation.[23]

Collections

Craig-Martin's work is represented in public collections worldwide, including:

Personal life

Craig-Martin met Jann Hashey while at Yale University,[1] and married her in 1963. The couple had a daughter, Jessica Craig-Martin, now a photographer.[36] The marriage ended in 1976 when Craig-Martin came out as gay.[37][1] Craig-Martin is one-eighth Chinese, as his great-grandmother was a native of Wuhan, China.[38]

Craig-Martin was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2001 Birthday Honours.[39] Craig-Martin was knighted in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to art.[40]

See also

References

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 3 4 Connolly, Cressida (24 November 2007), Michael Craig-Martin: Out of the Ordinary, London: Daily Telegraph, retrieved 14 January 2010
  2. ↑ "Interview: Michael Craig-Martin: Up close and impersonal". The Guardian. Guardian News & Media. 4 May 2011.
  3. ↑ Livingstone, Marco. "Craig-Martin, Michael". Grove Art Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 5 December 2015.
  4. ↑ Goldsmiths College staff list; retrieved 25 January 2011.
  5. ↑ Craig-Martin, Michael (18 January 2015). On Being An Artist. ISBN 978-1-908970-18-3.
  6. ↑ McKenzie, Janet (2014). "Michael Craig-Martin". Studio International.
  7. 1 2 3 Cork 2006, p. 17.
  8. 1 2 3 Cork 2006, p. 18.
  9. ↑ "Craigh-Martin profile". Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved 14 June 2016.
  10. ↑ Cork 2006.
  11. 1 2 Smith, Roberta (15 March 1991). "Wholesome Enough for Children". New York Times. Retrieved 14 June 2016.
  12. ↑ "Michael Craig-Martin profile". Gagosian.com. Retrieved 14 June 2016.
  13. ↑ Eliza Manchester (December 2002). "An Oak Tree 1973: Short text". Tate. Retrieved 8 November 2008.
  14. 1 2 Brian Sherwin (16 August 2007). "Art Space Talk: Michael Craig-Martin". myartspace.com. Archived from the original on 12 November 2007. Retrieved 31 October 2008.
  15. ↑ "Michael Craig-Martin". National Galleries of Scotland. Retrieved 9 August 2022.
  16. ↑ Tate. "Michael Craig-Martin on educating Damien Hirst – TateShots". Tate. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  17. 1 2 Collection: Michael Craig-Martin Archived 15 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine British Council.
  18. ↑ Life: The Observer Magazine – A celebration of 500 years of British Art – 19 March 2000
  19. ↑ "Michael Craig-Martin: Sculpture, May 31–August 23, 2019". Gagosian Gallery. 16 April 2019. Retrieved 17 August 2019.
  20. ↑ Mark Brown (12 March 2014). "High heels and pink pitchforks adorn Chatsworth house lawns". The Guardian.
  21. ↑ Michael Craig-Martin, June 12 - August 16, 2014 Gagosian Gallery, Hong Kong.
  22. ↑ Michael Craig-Martin at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, ARTINFO, 5 October 2006, retrieved 23 April 2008
  23. ↑ Michael Craig-Martin: Transience at the Serpentine Galleries, London, 25 November 2015, retrieved 26 February 2016
  24. ↑ "International Paintings and Sculpture | An oak tree". nga.gov.au.
  25. ↑ "Michael Craig-Martin | Centre Pompidou". www.centrepompidou.fr.
  26. ↑ "Michael Craig-Martin". data.bnf.fr.
  27. ↑ "Collection". IMMA.
  28. ↑ "Craig-Martin, Michael | Arts Council Collection". www.artscouncilcollection.org.uk.
  29. ↑ "Michael Craig-Martin | Artists | Collection | British Council − Visual Arts". visualarts.britishcouncil.org.
  30. ↑ "Government Art Collection - Contact us". www.gac.culture.gov.uk.
  31. ↑ "Your Search Results | Search the Collections | Victoria and Albert Museum". collections.vam.ac.uk.
  32. ↑ "Michael Craig-Martin born 1941". Tate.
  33. ↑ "Michael Craig-Martin | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art.
  34. ↑ "Harvard Art Museums". www.harvardartmuseums.org.
  35. ↑ "Search Results - (Creator:michael craig-martin)". collections.britishart.yale.edu.
  36. ↑ Colman, David (29 June 2003). "Possessed – Letting Fate Take the Picture". New York Times.
  37. ↑ Adams, Tim (28 April 2015), Michael Craig-Martin interview: ‘I have always thought everything important is right in front of you’, Daily Telegraph, retrieved 20 December 2023
  38. ↑ McHugh, Fionnuala (29 June 2014), Michael Craig-Martin is known as the Godfather of the Young British Artists, London: South China Morning Post, retrieved 30 April 2017
  39. ↑ "No. 56237". The London Gazette (Supplement). 16 June 2001. p. 9.
  40. ↑ "No. 61608". The London Gazette (Supplement). 11 June 2016. p. B2.

Sources

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