Background
Richard Deacon was born on August 15, 1949 in Bangor, Wales.
He left the Royal College in 1977 with Master of Arts in Environmental Media and went on to study part-time at the Chelsea School of Art.
Deacon was educated at the Royal College of Art, also in London.
Deacon was educated at the Somerset College of Art, Taunton, from 1968 – 1969.
Deacon was educated at St Martin's School of Art, London, receiving Bachelor of Arts in 1972.
Richard Deacon was born on August 15, 1949 in Bangor, Wales.
Deacon was educated at Plymouth College. He then studied at the Somerset College of Art, Taunton, from 1968 – 1969, at St Martin's School of Art, London, receiving Bachelor of Arts in 1972, and at the Royal College of Art, also in London. He left the Royal College in 1977 with Master of Arts in Environmental Media and went on to study part-time at the Chelsea School of Art.
Deacon's first one-person show came in 1978 in Brixton. His work is abstract, but often alludes to anatomical functions. His works are often constructed from everyday materials such as laminated plywood, and he calls himself a "fabricator" rather than a "sculptor." His early pieces are typically made up of sleek curved forms, with later works sometimes more bulky. His voracious appetite for material has seen him move between laminated wood, stainless steel, corrugated iron, polycarbonate, marble, clay, vinyl, foam, and leather.
Deacon's body of work includes small-scale works suitable for showing in art galleries, as well as much larger pieces shown in sculpture gardens and objects made for specific events, such as dance performances. Deacon won the Turner Prize in 1987 (nominated for his touring show “For Those Who Have Eyes”) having previously been nominated in 1984.
Deacon’s work consists of small-scale items that can be shown in museums and galleries, as well as larger pieces that are more suited for occasions such as dance performances or special events. In 1993, he worked on set designs and costumes with the producers of a major dance show. The show toured in France and performed at La Ferme Du Buisson in Paris. Considered one of the most important living British artists, in 1999 Deacon was named a Commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.
Many countries have offered Deacon the opportunity to create work for them on a large scale. “Moor” is a large piece that stands next to the bridge at Victoria Park in Plymouth. Deacon’s work has been exhibited throughout the world in solo shows and in international surveys, such as documenta IX in 1992. He represented Wales in 2007 at the Venice Biennale. In 2008, he was one of only five artists who were selected to work on the Angel of the South project.
He is represented by Lisson Gallery, London and Milan; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York City; Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin; Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg and Paris; and Los Angeles Louver Gallery, Los Angeles. Tate held a retrospective show of his work in 2014. In 2017 Deacon won the Ernst Franz Vogelmann-Preis für Skulptur, Heilbronn.
Richard Deacon lives and works in London, United Kingdom. Today, his works are held in the collections of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and the Tate Gallery in London, among others.
Deacon describes himself as a ‘fabricator’, emphasizing the construction behind the finished object – although many of the works are indeed cast, modelled or carved by hand – and accordingly the logic of the fabrication is often exposed: sinuous curved forms might be bound by glue oozing between layers of wood or have screws and rivets protruding from sheets of steel, wearing their hearts on their sleeves. Such transparency highlights the reactive nature of the process: it is part of a two-way conversation between artist and material that transforms the workaday into something metaphorical. The idea of ‘fabrication’ also denotes making something up, of fiction rather than truth, and this knack for wordplay surfaces in Deacon’s titles, which might establish juxtapositions or wreak new meaning from familiar sayings or clichés.
Quotations:
“Changing materials from one work to the next is a way of beginning again each time (and thus of finishing what had gone before).”
“What seems to me particularly interesting in the rolling, twisting, bending operations with material [is] that the enclosure or volume created [has] nothing to do with weight or mass. It is empty and therefore connected to meaning in a way that is independent of causality or rationality (that is to say that the outside is not caused by the inside).”
“I think it’s difficult to distinguish form from the imaginative ways one constructs form, so I think when it’s successful the material is present, the form is present, the structure is present, the associations are present, and the sense of meaning — or the possibility of meaning — is also present.”
In 1998 he was elected as a member of the Royal Academy.
Richard Deacon married Jacqueline Poncelet in 1977.