The much celebrated sculptor, Tony Cragg (b. 1949, Liverpool), is renowned for pushing the boundary between materials and structures, and investigating the way in which materials may be brought to express something of humanity. He received his BA degree from the Wimbledon School of Art in London (1973), and his MA from the Royal College of Art, London (1977). Since 1979, he has chosen to reside and work in Wuppertal, Germany.

Cragg early on evinced an interest in understanding the characteristics of materials: he worked briefly, for example, at a rubber company. Early works made use of found materials, including refuse. He took on discarded plastics so as to comment on the social-political conditions in Britain at the time, specifically Thatcherism. During the 1980s, he offered profound studies of the potential of materials including wood, stone, plaster, bronze, stainless steel, and Kevlar.

 Cragg’s Rational Beings series turns the forms of human profiles into whirling distortions, to create a unique fusion of the organic and the geometric, the figurative and the abstract. Titles of works from this series, for example Point of View (2012), hint at the human element present at the genesis of each piece. His Elliptic Column blurs the boundary between nature and technology. The surface of stainless steel, mirroring the surrounding landscape, makes the process of melting and forging visible.

The many prestigious venues of Cragg’s solo exhibitions include the Museo Nacional Havanna, Cuba (2017); the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK (2017); the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (2016); the Art Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (2012); the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte, Reina Sofia, Madrid (1995); and the Tate Gallery, London (1988). He represented Britain at the 43^rd Venice Biennale (1988). His works are found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; the Tate Gallery, London, and many others. Awards include Venice Biennale (1988), the Turner Prize (1988), the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (1992), appointment to the Royal Academy (1994), and the International Sculpture Centre Lifetime Achievement Award (2017).

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