Richard Deacon

Richard Deacon was born in 1949 in Bangor, Wales. Since the 1980s Deacon's work has been at the forefront of international sculpture. Working in a variety of materials including wood, stainless steel, clay, vinyl, leather and iron, his work playfully references the human body and the curiosities of everyday life. Through an articulation of context, language, and interior space, his works are typically autonomous, often separated from the ground by curved points of contact,  while endorsing an interactive social space. 

Richard Deacon studied at the Somerset College of Art, Taunton, England; St. Martin's College of Art, London; Royal College of Art, London; and the Chelsea School of Art, London. He was the recipient of the Turner Prize (1987), the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres (1996), and the Ernst Vogelmann Prize (2017).

Recent solo exhibitions have been held at: the Cabinet des dessins Jean Bonna, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Paris (2018); the Museum of Modern Art Machynlleth, Wales, United Kingdom; Kunsthalle Vogelmann, Heilbronn, Germany (in association with the Ernst Franz Vogelmann Prize); the Middelheim Museum, Antwerp, Belgium; the City Gallery Prague, Czech Republic; and The San Diego Museum of Art, California (all 2017). From 2015-2016 a major retrospective traveled from the Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland to the Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center, Baku, Azerbaijan, and to the Langen Foundation, Neuss, Germany, where he also had a one-man show at Skultpurenhalle, Neuss. The first comprehensive exhibition of Deacon’s drawings was shown at the Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany in 2016 and in 2014 a major retrospective of the artist’s work was held at the Tate Britain in London, United Kingdom. Deacon participated in Documenta IX (1992), the Glasgow International (2006), the Venice Biennale (2007), and the Venice Architecture Biennial (2012).