Nigel Hall (born 30 August 1943 in

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

) is an English sculptor and a

draughtsman A draughtsman (British spelling) or draftsman (American spelling) may refer to: * An architectural drafter, who produced architectural drawings until the late 20th century * An artist who produces drawings that rival or surpass their other types ...

Life

Hall's grandfather was a stonemason working on churches and cathedrals and Hall was able to observe this work and the carving of stone was to influence his sculptures and drawings. He studied at the

West of England College of Art The University of the West of England (also known as UWE Bristol) is a public research university, located in and around Bristol, England. The institution was know as the Bristol Polytechnic in 1970; it received university status in 1992 and ...

, Bristol from 1960 to 1964 and at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

, London from 1964 to 1967. A

Harkness Fellowship The Harkness Fellowship (previously known as the Commonwealth Fund Fellowship) is a program run by the Commonwealth Fund of New York City. This fellowship was established to reciprocate the Rhodes Scholarships and enable Fellows from several cou ...

took him to United States, to Canada and Mexico from 1967 to 1969. Only later, back in London, he travelled to Japan, Korea and Switzerland. From 1971 to 1981 Hall was a lecturer and external examiner of the Royal College of Art, London and ran the MA sculpture course at

Chelsea College of Art and Design Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London based in London, United Kingdom, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation. It offers further and higher educat ...

. Hall lives and works in London. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 2003.

Works

Hall has always created single and multi-coloured drawings. Since the 1960s he has also worked on sculptures and spatial structures. The interplay of shadows and balance in the works mean that their placement, whether indoors or outside, is important. Hall finds the landscape of the

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily in ...

and Swiss Alps spaces of silence and vastness. This influences his drawings and he keeps a diary of sketches on his frequent travels. His drawings represent more than half of his total work. His location-based

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...

is internationally known. A two-part wall relief in painted and gilded wood at the entrance of Providence Tower, Dallas (1989), a wall sculpture at the entrance to the

Australian National Gallery The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

, Canberra (1982), and his largest sculpture, a free-standing steel work at the entrance to the

Thameslink Thameslink is a 24-hour main-line route in the British railway system, running from , , , and via central London to Sutton, , , Rainham, , , , and . The network opened as a through service in 1988, with severe overcrowding by 1998, carrying m ...

tunnel, London, 1993.

Selected exhibitions

* Solo exhibitions: 1967: Galerie Givaudan, Paris, France, - 1982: Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany, - 1995: Veranneman Foundation, Kruishoutem, Belgium, - 1998: New York Studio School Gallery, New York City, - 2001: Foundation Sculpture at Schoenthal, Langenbruck, Switzerland, - 2004: Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany, - 2008: Park Ryu Sook Gallery, Seoul, South Korea, - 2008 ''Nigel Hall: Sculpture and Drawing 1965-2008'' -

Yorkshire Sculpture Park The Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) is an art gallery, with both open-air and indoor exhibition spaces, in West Bretton, Wakefield, in West Yorkshire, England. It shows work by British and international artists, including Henry Moore and Barbar ...

, Wakefield, West Yorkshire * Group exhibitions: 1975:

Biennale de Paris The ''Biennale de Paris'' (English: Paris Biennale) is a noted French art festival. History The 'Biennale de Paris' was launched by Raymond Cogniat in 1959 and set up by André Malraux as he was Minister of Culture to present an overview of young ...

, Paris, France, - 1977:

documenta ''documenta'' is an exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. The ''documenta'' was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau (Federal Horticultura ...

6, Kassel, Germany, - 2002/03:

Peggy Guggenheim Collection The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is an art museum on the Grand Canal in the Dorsoduro ''sestiere'' of Venice, Italy. It is one of the most visited attractions in Venice. The collection is housed in the , an 18th-century palace, which was the home ...

, Venice, Italy, - 2001, 2003, 2005: "Blickachsen", Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Germany, 2006: Museum of Fine Arts, Ostend, Belgium - 2015: ''British Art +'', Museum Biedermann, Donaueschingen, GermanyMuseum Biedermann: British Art+
with Nigel Hall, David Nash, Kenny Hunter, Matthew Radford, May Cornet * Public collections: Tate Gallery, London, - Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris, France, - Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany, - Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Japan, - National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan, - Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia, - Dallas Museum of Fine Art, Texas, USA, - Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel Hall's sculpture ''Soda Lake'' was featured in Richard Alston's dance as the physical set for the piece. The dance piece was named after the sculpture. The sculpture was inspired by ''Soda Lake'' which can be found in the

Mojave desert The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily in ...

. One part of the sculpture is a thin metal pole which stretched up at an angle and has a large elliptical loop attached at its apex. The second part is a thicker pole which is hung diametrically opposite the point at which the loop is attached to the thin pole, and is suspended so that it does not quite reach the ground. This is in two parts, the top section being marginally fatter than the lower. The upper end of the pole is slightly pointed whilst its lower end is bluntly rounded. The sculpture is made of fiberglass and aluminium and is painted gloss black. Hall used the concept of silence found at the landscape of ''Soda Lake'' and translated it into his sculpture through hanging one of the poles above the ground slightly.

Selected sculpture parks

, Wakefield, West Yorkshire * Cass Sculpture at Goodwood * Sculpture garden

Kunsthalle Mannheim The Kunsthalle Mannheim is a museum of modern and contemporary art, built in 1907, established in 1909 and located in Mannheim, Germany. Since then it has housed the city's art collections as well as temporary exhibitions – and up to 1927 those ...

, Mannheim, Germany * Foundation

Sculpture at Schoenthal Sculpture at Schoenthal is an art foundation in Switzerland. It is named after the Schönthal Monastery, a former church near the village of Langenbruck, Basel-Landschaft, which is now used for temporary art exhibitions. An Sculpture garden, ar ...

, Langenbruck, Switzerland

Gallery

File:003_ysp-hall.jpg, ''Wide Passage'' - Yorkshire Sculpture Park File:Sculpture at Schoenthal-hall 025.jpg, ''Spring'' - Sculpture at Schoenthal File:006_ysp-hall.jpg, ''Crossing (Vertical)'' - Yorkshire Sculpture Park File:Mannheim Kunsthalle Nigel Hall Slow Motion 2.jpg, ''Slow Motion'' - Mannheim

Selected literature

* ''Nigel Hall: Sculpture and Drawings'', exh, cat., Annely Juda Fine Art, London, 1978 * ''Nigel Hall: Skulpturen und Zeichnungen'', exh. cat., Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany, 1982 * ''Nigel Hall: Hidden Valleys'', exh. cat., Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany, 2004 * ''Nigel Hall: Other Voices, Other Rooms'', exh. Cat., Galerie Scheffel, Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Germany, 2007 * Andrew Lambirth: ''Nigel Hall - Sculpture and Works on Paper''. Royal Academy Books, London, 2008. - (The text is drawn from transcriptions of interviews with the artist recorded by Andrew Lambirth for the "Artist's Lives" project for the "National Life Stories". The British Library) * ''Nigel Hall: Chinese Whispers'', exh. cat., Galerie Andresthalmann, Zürich, 2010

References

External links

Biographical details

Nigel Hall: Sculpture + Drawings 1965 – 2008 at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, Nigel 1943 births Living people People educated at Bristol Grammar School 20th-century British sculptors 21st-century sculptors English sculptors English male sculptors Royal Academicians Artists from Bristol