Skip to navigation | Skip to search
RA Magazine talks to Joe TIlson RA
Photograph by Eamonn McCabe.
RA Magazine talks to Chris Wilkinson RA
Photograph by Julian Anderson.
RA Magazine talks to Peter Cook RA
Photograph by Eamonn McCabe.
RA Magazine talks to Richard Wilson RA
Photograph by Julian Anderson.
Born: 1944, Dublin, Ireland
Elected RA: December 2006
Category of Membership: Painter
Michael Craig-Martin grew up and was educated in the United States. He studied Fine Art at the Yale University School of Art and Architecture and, on completion of his studies in 1966, he moved to London where he has lived ever since. His early work drew together a variety of objects and materials and questioned the nature of art and representation. An Oak Tree, 1973, is one of his best known early works. His more recent work, which includes painting, printmaking, installations projections and drawing, continues to depict common place objects.
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. Most notably there was a major retrospective of his work at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1989, and in 1991 he showed wall drawings at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Group exhibitions include the British conceptual exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in 1972, The New Art, and the 1996 exhibition Un siecle de sculpture anglaise at the Jeu de Paume in Paris. He was the British representative at the Sao Paulo Bienal in 1998.
Craig-Martin is also widely recognised as an effective and influential teacher. His teaching career started in 1966, but it is his period at Goldsmiths College, London for which he is best known. His former students include many of those artists who made such a significant impact on the art scene in the 1990s; these include Damien Hirst, Gary Hume and Sarah Lucas.
He has curated exhibitions, including Drawing the Line, which toured venues including the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1995. He has also published many articles and essays and was a Trustee of the Tate Gallery.
Read an interview with Michael Craig-Martin in RA Magazine Summer 2007
Recent solo exhibitions
2013 Museum Haus Esters, Krefeld, Germany
Galerie Andres Thalmann, Zurich
2012 Rugby Art Gallery and Museum, Rugby
Galerie Andres Thalmann, Zürich
2011 Alan Cristea, London
New Art Centre, Roche Court, near Salisbury
Alan Cristea Gallery, London
New Art Centre, Roche Court, Wiltshire
2010 Gagosian Gallery, Athens
The Goss-Michael Foundation, Dallas
2009 Galerie Haas & Fuchs, Berlin
PKM Trinity Gallery, Seoul
2008 Alan Cristea, London
The Columns, Seoul
2007 Gagosian Gallery, London
2006 New Art Centre, Wiltshire, England.
Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
2005 Haas & Fuchs, Berlin
2004 Milton Keynes Art Gallery, Milton Keynes
2003 Galerie Judin, Zurich
Gagosian Gallery, New York
2002 Manchester Art Gallery
2001 Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin
Sintra Museum of Modern Art, Berardo Collection, Portugal
2000 Waddington Galleries, London
1999 Museum of Modern Art, New York
Contact details for further information
Email membershipoffice@royalacademy.org.uk
