Michael Craig-Martin RA

"Ever since I was a child I have been entranced by the visual world. One might say that I am more interested in appearance than meaning. In my work, I have always sought to find a balance between ideas and aesthetics."  

Born in Dublin in 1941, Craig-Martin spent his formative years in the United States, where his family moved in 1946. During the 1960s, he earned a BA and MFA from Yale University School of Art and Architecture, studying alongside Jennifer Bartlett, Brice Marden, and Richard Serra; he also drew inspiration from the legacy of Josef Albers and the rise of Minimalism and Pop art. Craig-Martin returned to the United Kingdom in 1966, and in 1972 he participated in The New Art, a landmark exhibition of Conceptual art at the Hayward Gallery, London. The following year, he produced An Oak Tree (1973), which helped shape the landscape of British Conceptualism. An Oak Tree comprises a glass of water on a shelf and an accompanying text in which the artist explains that, outward appearances notwithstanding, he has changed the humble object into the titular plant. The fascination with semantics revealed by this transformative maneuver has remained a key aspect of Craig-Martin’s practice. 

Craig-Martin has been the subject of retrospectives at the Whitechapel Gallery, London (1989); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2006); Serpentine Gallery, London (2015); Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul Arts Center (2022); and Royal Academy of Arts, London (2024). Alongside his work as an artist, he is a celebrated teacher. At Goldsmiths, University of London, where he taught from 1974 to 1988 and from 1994 to 2000, he profoundly influenced a generation of students, including Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas, who would become known as the Young British Artists. Craig-Martin was awarded a CBE in 2000 and knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2016.