MICHAEL CRAIG-MARTIN

Born 1941, Dublin, Ireland; lives in London, England

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Michael Craig-Martin was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1941. He grew up and was educated in the United States, studying Fine Art at Yale University. He came to Britain on completion of his studies in 1966, and has lived and worked there ever since. Craig-Martin's early work made deliberate reference to the American artists he most admired, such as Donald Judd, Jasper Johns, and Robert Morris. He was particularly affected by Minimalism and used ordinary household materials in his sculptures, playing against the logic of his sources. During the 1990s, the focus of his work shifted decisively to painting, with the same range of boldly outlined motifs and luridly vivid color schemes in unexpected (and at times apparently arbitrary) combinations applied both to works on canvas and on paper.

Craig-Martin is well known as an influential teacher at Goldsmiths College, London, and is considered a key figure in the emergence of the young British artists in the early 90's. His former students include Damien Hirst, Julian Opie, and Ian Davenport. His work is in numerous public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Tate Gallery, London. He has had retrospectives at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (2006) and Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2006).