Antony Gormley
Biography
Antony Gormley is one of Britain’s most influential contemporary sculptors, renowned for his exploration of the human body’s relationship to space, time, and the environment. Born in London in 1950, Gormley studied archaeology, anthropology, and the history of art at Trinity College, Cambridge, before training at Central Saint Martins and the Slade School of Fine Art. Deeply influenced by his travels in India and Sri Lanka, where he immersed himself in Buddhist philosophy, Gormley’s practice centers on the body — not as a figure to depict, but as a vessel for lived experience.
Using his own body as a template in many early works, Gormley redefined figurative sculpture through projects that explore presence, absence, and the tension between interior and exterior worlds. His breakthrough work Bed (1980–81), made from 8,640 slices of bread, marked the beginning of a career dedicated to rethinking sculpture’s relationship with the viewer and the surrounding space.
Gormley’s major public works have cemented his global reputation. Angel of the North (1998), a monumental steel figure towering over the landscape of Gateshead, England, became an instant icon of contemporary public art. His Another Place (1997), featuring 100 cast-iron figures spread across Crosby Beach, and Event Horizon (2007), an installation of life-size figures placed across urban skylines in London, New York, and Hong Kong, challenged viewers’ perceptions of space and presence.
Throughout his career, Gormley has exhibited extensively at leading institutions worldwide. Major solo exhibitions include Blind Light (2007) at the Hayward Gallery, London, featuring a room filled with dense mist, disorienting visitors and emphasizing bodily awareness; Antony Gormley (2009) at the Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria; and Still Standing (2011–12) at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. In 2019, the Royal Academy of Arts in London presented a major career-spanning retrospective, reaffirming Gormley’s place at the forefront of contemporary sculpture.
He has also participated in key international exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale (1982, 1986, 2007), and his work is held in major collections including Tate, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Awarded the Turner Prize in 1994, and knighted in 2014 for services to the arts, Gormley continues to explore the body as a site of transformation, forging powerful connections between sculpture, architecture, and human experience.