Rachel Whiteread sitting on the front steps of ‘House’, her controversial 1993 creation.
Born in 1963, Rachel Whiteread first rose to prominence in the mid-1990s with her large sculptures created from the negative spaces of different mundane, everyday objects. Since then, she has established a reputation as one of the leading artists of her generation.
Whiteread’s work has been both widely praised and criticised, but despite that, her pieces remain popular in today’s market. Primarily a sculptress, Whiteread once said printing has “always been something I’m interested in”; prints currently account for 19% of her work sold at auction, and the majority fetch between £1,000 and £5,000.
Whiteread’s personal life is less dramatic and controversial than some of her contemporaries, but it is still important when considering her work. Below are five things you might not have known about Rachel Whiteread.
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She Was Part Of The Young British Artists
The Young British Artists (or YBAs) is a term referring to a loose group of artists who gained public attention in the late 1980s and early ‘90s. Prominent members include Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, and the group was initially supported by the well-known art collector, Charles Saatchi.
Whiteread is less closely-associated with the YBAs than some of her contemporaries, and unlike many of them, she never gained a reputation as an enfant terrible of the art world. Although she was not noted for disruptive behaviour, deliberate provocation, or a debaucherous lifestyle, Whiteread still caused significant controversy due to the nature of her work, with some believing her to be a groundbreaking, visionary artist, and others condemning her lack of real artistic skill.
Her Most Expensive Prints Sold For £8,000
Demolished was Rachel Whiteread’s first portfolio of prints. The 12 serigraphs were published in 1996, and they captured the demolition of tower blocks in three different housing estates in Hackney, East London, between 1993 and 1995.
Whiteread said the screenprints recorded “something that is going to be completely forgotten… the detritus of our culture”. Somewhat ironically, the monochrome prints are among Whiteread’s most popular in today’s market. They account for six out of her 10 most expensive prints sold at auction, with the most expensive being sold for £8,000 by Sotheby’s in February 2004.
Demolished sold by Sotheby’s in 2004
She Was The First Woman To Win The Turner Prize
House might well be Rachel Whiteread’s most controversial creation, but it propelled her into the public eye, where she has remained for the past three decades. House was a concrete cast of an entire condemned Victorian house, the last still standing in a street marked for redevelopment. Whiteread’s concrete creation was unveiled to the public in October 1993 (after the original structure had been removed brick by brick) and it immediately generated widespread media attention, sparking debates about housing, redevelopment, and the nature of art. Whiteread confidently told The Guardian in 2007 that “there was nothing in the art world that had had that level of publicity before.”
Less than a month later, it was announced that Whiteread was the first woman in history to have won the prestigious Turner prize for House. On the same day, the local council decided to demolish the sculpture that had won her the prize. House was destroyed in January 1994, with the driver of one bulldozer reportedly quipping: “It’s not art, it’s a lump of concrete.”
Despite this, Whiteread has continued exploring the themes of houses, demolition, space, and memories throughout her career; Demolished is a series of prints recording the demolition of East London tower blocks in the ‘90s, and it currently holds the record for the artist’s most expensive print sold at auction.
Rachel Whiteread’s Turner Prize Winning “House”
She Also Won The K Foundation Award
The K Foundation was a subversive art foundation set up by Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond (previously members of the electronic band, The KLF). In 1993, the same year that Whiteread won the Turner Prize, the K Foundation presented her with the K Foundation Award for being the “worst artist of the year”.
To emphasise their point, the K Foundation also gave Whiteread £40,000 – twice the award for the Turner Prize. Initially, Whiteread refused to accept the reward, although she changed her mind after the K Foundation announced they would burn the money if she did not. Eventually, she relented, saying she would donate it to charitable causes.
She Loves Using ‘Found’ Objects
Whiteread has said in the past “I’ve always picked things up. I’m a magpie”. She’s also talked openly about her childhood in Essex, when it was possible to “find a whole dinner service” at the local dump, describing the experience as “a treasure hunt.”
‘Found’ objects remain an integral part of Whiteread’s artistic practice to this day, from the casts of the undersides of 100 ‘found’ chairs (which later inspired the 50 Spaces print), to the “studio full of crap” where she works. Some of this “crap” found its way to an exhibition of her drawings at Tate Britain in 2009, when the artist displayed a collection of objects usually found in her studio alongside her drawings. She was subsequently inspired to create a series of prints based on photographs of the items. The resulting images are titled 12 Objects, 12 Etchings, and they fetched £8,000 in January 2020 when sold by Phillips.
