Anish Kapoor b. 1954

Anish Kapoor is a British-Indian sculptor best-known for his large-scale public installations. Kapoor was born in Bombay to a Hindu-Jewish family. It was after his family moved to Israel that he became interested in the arts, later moving to Britain in 1973 to attend Hornsey College of Art and Chelsea School of Art and Design. Kapoor taught at Wolverhampton Polytechnic in 1979. He collaborated with architects and engineers extensively throughout his career.

Kapoor gained recognition in the 1980s for his biomorphic sculptures made of raw materials as limestone, granite, marble, pigment and plaster. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Kapoor started experimenting with the space surrounding his sculptures. His art explores and manipulates ideas of distance and distortion, often drawing attention to the intentional void in space. In 1995, the artist started working in polished stainless steel, now his most famed medium. These mirror-like works distort and reflect the viewer and surroundings.

Anish Kapoor was the first Guest Artistic Director at Brighton Festival in 2009. Later that same year, he was honored as the first living artist to mount a solo exhibition at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Kapoor has been given numerous awards, including the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association in 2011, the Turner Prize in 1991 and the Premio Duemila by the Venice Biennale in 1990. He was elected Royal Academician in 1999 and has received the following civilian honors: Knighthood (2013), Padma Bhushan from India (2012), Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France (2011) and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (2003). He was granted honorary fellowships from the Royal Institute of British Architects (2001), the University of Wolverhampton (1999), Leeds University (1997) and the London Institute (1997).

Kapoor has been commissioned for numerous installation projects internationally, including in Japan, Chicago, New York, Versailles, Italy, Israel and the UK. His most famous work is Cloud Gate at Millennium Park in Chicago. The artist's work is collected around the world, notably by the MoMA, the De Pont Foundation in the Netherlands, the Tate Modern, the Fondazione Prada in Milan, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, the Israel Museum and the Guggenheim in Bilbao.

Related Categories: New British Sculpture, Contemporary Indian Art, Contemporary British Art, India, South Asia, Large-Scale Sculpture, London Artists, Contemporary Minimalist, Visual Perception, Contemporary Asian Art, United Kingdom and Ireland, Asian Art, Contemporary Art, 20th Century Art, Outdoor Art, Site-Specific Art, Sculpture, Open Form, Focus on Materials, Line, Form, and Color, Architecture, Biomorphic