Michael Craig-Martin

Sir Michael Craig-Martin CBE RA (born Dublin, 1941) studied in Washington, D.C. and at Yale before settling in London, where he still lives and works. A pivotal figure of British Conceptualism, he moves fluently between painting, sculpture, prints and monumental vinyl murals. Since his seminal work An Oak Tree (1973) he has focused on crisp contour drawings of banal, mass-produced objects, rendered in electric colour to probe perception, language and value. Craig-Martin’s art resides in major collections including Tate, MoMA, the Guggenheim, Centre Pompidou and the National Gallery of Australia, while his editions are staples of corporate and private holdings worldwide. Knighted in 2016 and appointed CBE in 2000, he is also a Royal Academician and a transformative educator of the Young British Artists generation at Goldsmiths. At auction his paintings routinely achieve seven-figure prices and his large edition programme—serigraphs and powder-coated steel sculptures—changes hands briskly, giving him one of the most liquid and dependable markets of any living British artist.