Biography

Richard Wilson, born 1953, is one of Britain’s most renowned sculptors. He is internationally celebrated for his interventions in architectural space which draw heavily for their inspiration from the worlds of engineering and construction.

Wilson has exhibited widely nationally and internationally for over thirty years and has made major museum exhibitions and public works in countries as diverse as Japan, USA, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Australia and numerous countries throughout Europe. Wilson has also represented Britain in the Sydney, Sao Paulo, Venice and Aperto Biennial and the Yokohama Triennal, was nominated for the Turner Prize on two occasions and was awarded the prestigious DAAD residency in Berlin 1992/3. He was one of a select number of artists invited to create a major public work for The Millennium Dome and the only British artist invited to participate in Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial 2000, Japan.

Wilson’s projects have generated universal critical acclaim. Wilson’s seminal installation 20:50, a sea of reflective sump oil, formerly in the Saatchi Collection and now permanently installed at Mona in Tasmania, was described as ‘one of the masterpieces of the modern age’ by the art critic Andrew Graham Dixon in the BBC television series The History of British Art.

Wilson was in 2004 appointed Visiting Research Professor at the University of East London; and at Tate Publishing as part of their British Artist Series books, launched in October 2005, Richard Wilson by Simon Morrissey. In 2006 he was elected as a member of the Royal Academy and in 2008 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate at the University of Middlesex.

Wilson's commissioned contribution to Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture, 2008, entitled Turning the Place Over, comprised a vast ovoid section of a façade that rotated three dimensionally on a spindle. His regional cultural Olympic exhibition, Hang on a Minute Lads, I've got a Great Idea, at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill 2012 had a hydraulically teetering replica coach (The Italian Job) positioned at the edge of the buildings roof. He opened Slipstream, a major commission for Heathrow's Terminal 2 in April 2014, and in 2017 a major solo show at Annely Juda Gallery in London, entitled Stealing Space.

Richard Wilson is represented in Italy by Galleria Fumagalli .