Like many other members of the Young British Artists (YBAs), Rachel Whiteread is highly controversial, and her work is both widely praised and ridiculed. Best-known for her large casts of the negative spaces of everyday objects, Whiteread has successfully built up a reputation for herself over the past three decades, and she is now considered […]
STIK is a British graffiti artist whose alias comes from his signature stick figure creations, and who once said he wanted to “turn the art world on its head”. In many ways, he’s succeeded; over the past 15 years or so, he’s steadily risen to prominence with his minimalist, linear artwork which tackles social issues […]
British graffiti artist STIK has become known for his distinctive, minimalist stick figure art which explores themes of social injustice, inequality and community. Though he’s only risen to prominence in the past 15 years or so, STIK has firmly established himself as one of the leading and most influential street artists alive today, having been […]
Paula Rego’s imaginative, incandescent art explores injustice, rage, sensuality, power, and freedom, in both the personal and the political sphere, often against a strange, fantastical backdrop inspired by fairytales and folk stories. Interest in Rego’s work surged after her major 2021 retrospective held at the Tate. Her prints account for 72% of her work sold […]
John Piper enjoyed significant cultural and financial success during his lifetime, and interest in his work has continued to grow steadily since his death in 1992. The artist experimented with an extraordinary number of different styles and techniques throughout his long and distinguished career, achieving recognition for both his abstract and his figurative art across […]
Although John Piper never confined himself to any one particular movement, he was, in many ways, a quintessential British artist, with much of his work focusing on romantic English landscapes and buildings. This is perhaps one of the reasons that John Piper pieces remain so sought-after in the United Kingdom today; there is an inherent […]
Though L.S. Lowry was frequently labelled as a “Sunday painter”, he was, in fact, far more than that; as he once said, “I’m a Sunday painter who paints every day of the week.” Over time, his distinctive prints and paintings of matchstick figures set against dour industrial landscapes captured the attention of the world, and […]
Laurence Stephen Lowry was born in November 1887, but he didn’t achieve significant recognition until his first solo show in London in 1939. Though he initially divided critics, by the time of his death in 1976, he was widely recognised as one of the most important artists of his generation, and his fame has only […]
Born in Yorkshire in 1964, Harland Miller is both an artist and an author who is fascinated by the relationship between words, colour, and images. He’s best known for his large-scale satirical paintings based on vintage Penguin book covers, bearing sardonic, absurd, or nostalgic titles and messages. Miller has built up a formidable reputation for […]
For an artist who has no qualms about emblazoning various four-letter words across his paintings, Harland Miller is surprisingly soft-spoken and understated in the rare interviews he gives. Usually speaking with his customary cigarette dangling from his mouth, the Yorkshire artist comes across as unassuming, thoughtful, and articulate, speaking with a rare eloquence about his […]
Roy Lichtenstein experimented with different artistic styles throughout his career, but it was his vibrant Pop Art paintings based on comic strips which really captured the world’s attention and brought him fame and reputation. These now-iconic images were created using Ben-Day dots to mimic crude newspaper prints, and they tended to be shrewd, witty social […]
The American-born artist Roy Lichtenstein is generally regarded as one of the leading figures of the Pop Art movement, alongside other greats such as Andy Warhol. Lichtenstein is best known for his satirical paintings inspired by comic books, but he was a hugely prolific artist, and he experimented in numerous different styles during his career. […]
Since his rise to fame in the mid-1980s, Jeff Koons has firmly established himself as one of the most popular and controversial artists of our time. He is lauded by some as a daring pioneer of contemporary art, but his work is disparaged by others as being shallow, crass, and banal. Nevertheless, he’s one of […]
David Hockney first rose to prominence in the 1960s whilst he was still a student at the Royal College of Art. Since then, his reputation has only continued to grow, and he is now widely recognised as one of the most popular, celebrated, and sought-after artists alive today. Hockney has experimented in numerous artistic fields […]
David Hockney is widely-regarded as one of the foremost British artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, and he is acknowledged as an influential contributor to the Pop Art movement. Born in Yorkshire in 1937, Hockney has also spent much of his life in California, which provided the inspiration for many of his most celebrated […]
Damien Hirst made waves in the art world from the moment he organised the 1988 exhibition Freeze as a student, which is often credited with being the catalyst that created the Young British Artists. Since then, Hirst’s fame, controversy, and wealth have continued to grow, and he is now widely regarded as one of the […]
Antony Gormley is a prominent British artist best known for his large-scale sculptures and installations which explore the relationship between humans and the spaces they inhabit within nature and the cosmos. Gormley’s sculptures have been widely exhibited across Britain and the rest of the world, yet he has also worked in other media, and interest […]
In a career spanning seven decades, Lucian Freud is best known for his psychologically penetrating nude portraits. There is something at once confrontational and vulnerable in his paintings as he lays his subjects bare for the viewer’s inspection, often quite literally. His unflinching examination and depiction of the human form, coupled with his unique brushstrokes […]
Known almost as much for his piercing gaze and eccentric lifestyle as he is for his artwork, German-born Lucian Freud’s intimate, sensuous, and unflinching paintings changed the way the world viewed portraiture forever. Lucian Freud was in many ways the epitome of the bohemian artist, but at the same time, he was an intensely private […]
In recent years, Emin has shifted from being an outspoken rebel and provocateur to a respected (and unexpected) pillar of the establishment. This does not mean demand for her artwork has decreased, however, with the majority of Tracey Emin prints selling at auction for between £1,000 and £5,000, and many reaching over £30,000. She has […]
