Richard Wright (born London, 1960) is an English artist and musician. Wright was born in London. His family moved to Scotland when he was young. He attended

Edinburgh College of Art Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) is one of eleven schools in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Tracing its history back to 1760, it provides higher education in art and design, architecture, histor ...

from 1978 to 1982 and studied at

Glasgow School of Art The Glasgow School of Art (GSA; gd, Sgoil-ealain Ghlaschu) is a higher education art school based in Glasgow, Scotland, offering undergraduate degrees, post-graduate awards (both taught and research-led), and PhDs in architecture, fine art, and ...

between 1993 and 1995 studying for a Master of Fine Art. He lives in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

. and Norfolk.

Work

Wright decorates architectural spaces with intricately designed

geometric Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is ca ...

patterns in paint and

gold leaf Gold leaf is gold that has been hammered into thin sheets (usually around 0.1 µm thick) by goldbeating and is often used for gilding. Gold leaf is available in a wide variety of karats and shades. The most commonly used gold is 22-kara ...

. He has produced a wide range of works made on paper, from prints on poster paper to elaborate and complex large-scale works that can include thousands of hand drawn and painted marks. Wright's paintings are often short-lived, only surviving the length of an exhibition, they are painted over at the end of the show. This often seems to heighten the senses of the viewer in the knowledge that the work may not be viewable again, in any other place, at any other time. Turner Prize judge Andrea Schlieker described him as a "painter who rejects the canvas"; fellow judge Jonathan Jones called him a "modern fresco painter". Wright injects complex works into often overlooked architectural spaces. However in recent years Wright has installed numerous permanent works in the collections of

MoMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; Ang ...

, New York; Museum Abteiberg,

Mönchengladbach Mönchengladbach (, li, Jlabbach ) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located west of the Rhine, halfway between Düsseldorf and the Dutch border. Geography Municipal subdivisions Since 2009, the territory of Mönchengladbac ...

; Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art,

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area. Until the early 1800s, the a ...

; Carnegie Museum of Art,

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

;

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

, London; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland, Tate Britain, London, England, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Queen’s House, Royal Museums Greenwich, London, England and Tottenham Court Road Elizabeth Line Station, London, England. On 7 December 2009, Wright received the

Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...

2009 for his golden

fresco Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaste ...

, ''no title'', on the walls of Tate Britain's second room.

Exhibitions

The first solo exhibition of Richard's work took place in 1994 at Transmission Gallery,

, and since that time Wright has continued to exhibit worldwide. Notable shows include: 1997 Pitura Britannica, Museum of Contemporary Art,

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

. 1998 Manifesta 2,

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

. 2000 The British Art Show 5, Talbot Rice,

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

. 2001

Kunsthalle Bern The Kunsthalle Bern is a ''Kunsthalle'' (art exposition hall) on the Helvetiaplatz in Bern, Switzerland. It was built in 1917–1918 by the Kunsthalle Bern Association and opened on October 5, 1918. Since then, it has been the site of numerous e ...

and

Tate Liverpool Tate Liverpool is an art gallery and museum in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, and part of Tate, along with Tate St Ives, Cornwall, Tate Britain, London, and Tate Modern, London. The museum was an initiative of the Merseyside Development Corpo ...

. 2002 Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen,

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

. 2004

Dundee Contemporary Arts Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) is an art centre in Dundee, Scotland, with two contemporary art galleries, a two-screen cinema, a print studio, a learning and public engagement programme, a shop and a café bar. The director of DCA is Beth Bate ...

Dundee Dundee (; sco, Dundee; gd, Dùn Dè or ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was , giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or ...

. 2007

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (or MCASD), in San Diego, California, US, is an art museum focused on the collection, preservation, exhibition, and interpretation of works of art from 1950 to the present. Mission The stated mission of ...

. 2008 Carnegie International,

. 2009 Gagosian Gallery, Davies Street, London, England. 2009 BQ, Berlin, Germany. 2010 Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland. 2010 The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd, Glasgow, Scotland. 2012 Works on Paper. Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, Scotland. 2013 Tate Britain, London, England. 2013 Theseus Temple, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria. 2013 Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands. 2014 The Modern Institute, Aird’s Lane, Glasgow, Scotland. 2014 Nine Chains To The Moon BQ, Berlin, Germany. 2015 Gagosian Gallery, Rome, Italy. 2016 Great Hall at Queen’s House, Royal Museums Greenwich, London, England. 2017 The Modern Institute, Aird’s Lane Bricks Space, Glasgow, Scotland. 2018 Tottenham Court Road Elizabeth Line Station, London, England. Commissioned by Crossrail Programme (scheduled to open 2020). 2019 Gagosian, Park & 75, New York, NY.

Personal life

Wright is married to the writer

Sarah Lowndes Sarah Lowndes is a writer and curator based in Norwich, where she is also Research Fellow at Norwich University of the Arts. Lowndes is Director of Kunsthalle Cromer and previously contributed to the Public Programme of the Sainsbury Centre at t ...

References

External links

Review of 2009 Turner Prize winner Richard Wright (Tate Britain) and Pop Life: Art in a Material World (Tate Modern)
by

Joseph Nechvatal Joseph Nechvatal (born January 15, 1951) is an American post-conceptual digital artist and Aesthetics, art theoretician who creates computer-assisted paintings and computer animations, often using custom-created computer viruses. Life and work ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, Richard 1960 births Living people 20th-century English painters English male painters 21st-century English painters Turner Prize winners Alumni of the Edinburgh College of Art Alumni of the Glasgow School of Art English contemporary artists