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'Andy Goldsworthy' (born July 26, 1956) is a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist living in Scotland who produces site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings. His art involves the use of natural and found objects to create both temporary and permanent sculptures which draw out the character of their environment.

Contents

Biography

Artistic style

Awards

Publications

Major exhibitions and installations

Personal life

Quotations

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

Articles

Books

External links

General

Art

Biography

The son of F. Allin Goldsworthy (1929–2001), former professor of applied mathematics at the University of Leeds, Goldsworthy was born on July 26, 1956 in Cheshire^[1] and grew up on the Harrogate side of Leeds, West Yorkshire, in a house edging the green belt. From the age of 13 he worked on farms as a labourer. He has likened the repetitive quality of farm tasks to the routine of making sculpture: "A lot of my work is like picking potatoes; you have to get into the rhythm of it."^[2]
He studied fine art at the Bradford College of Art (1974–1975) and at the Preston Polytechnic (1975–1978) (now the University of Central Lancashire) in Preston, Lancashire, receiving his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree from the latter.^[3]
After leaving college, Goldsworthy lived in Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria. In 1985 he moved to Langholm in Dumfries and Galloway, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, and a year later to Penpont. It has been said that his gradual drift northwards was "due to a way of life over which he did not have complete control", but that contributing factors were opportunities and desires to work in these areas and "reasons of economy".^[4]
In 1993 he was conferred an honorary degree by the University of Bradford. He is currently an A.D. White Professor-At-Large at Cornell University.^[5]
He is the subject of a 2001 documentary feature film ''Rivers and Tides'', directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer.^[6]

Artistic style

The materials used in Goldsworthy's art often include brightly-coloured flowers, icicles, leaves, mud, pinecones, snow, stone, twigs, and thorns. He has been quoted as saying, "I think it's incredibly brave to be working flowers and leaves and petals. But I have to: I can't edit the materials I work with. My remit is to work with nature as a whole."^[7] Goldsworthy is generally considered the founder of modern rock balancing. For his ephemeral works, Goldsworthy often uses only his bare hands, teeth, and found tools to prepare and arrange the materials; however, for his permanent sculptures like "Roof", "Stone River" and "Three Cairns", "Moonlit Path" and "Chalk Stones" (Petworth, West Sussex, 2002) he has also employed the use of machine tools.
Photography plays a crucial role in his art due to its often ephemeral and transient state. According to Goldsworthy, "Each work grows, stays, decays – integral parts of a cycle which the photograph shows at its heights, marking the moment when the work is most alive. There is an intensity about a work at its peak that I hope is expressed in the image. Process and decay are implicit."^[8]

Awards

★ 1979 – North West Arts Award

★ 1980 – Yorkshire Arts Award

★ 1981 – Northern Arts Award

★ 1982 – Northern Arts Award

★ 1986 – Northern Arts Bursary

★ 1987 – Scottish Arts Council Award

★ 1989 – Northern Electricity Arts Award

★ 2000 – Appointed officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)

Publications

★ Rain, Sun, Snow, Hail, Mist, Calm : Photoworks by Andy Goldsworthy, , , , Henry Moore Centre for the Study of Sculpture, 1985,

★ Parkland, , , , Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 1988,

★ Touching North, , , , Fabian Carlsson, 1989,

★ Leaves, , , , Common Ground, 1989,

★ Andy Goldsworthy, , , , Viking, 1990, Republished as Andy Goldsworthy : A Collaboration with Nature, , , , H.N. Abrams, 1990,

★ Ice and Snow Drawings : 1990–1992, , , , FruitMarket Gallery, 1992,

★ Hand to Earth : Andy Goldsworthy Sculpture, 1976–1990, , Andy, Goldsworthy, H.N. Abrams, 1993,

★ Stone, , , , Viking, 1994,

★ Black Stones, Red Pools : Dumfriesshire Winter 1994–5, , , , Pro Arte Foundation in association with Michael Hue-Williams Fine Art Ltd. & Galerie Lelong, N.Y, 1995,

★ Sheepfolds, , Andy, Goldsworthy, Michael Hue-Williams Fine Art Ltd, 1996,

★ Wood, , , , Viking, 1996,

★ Arch, , Andy, Goldsworthy, Thames & Hudson, 1999,

★ Time, , , , Thames & Hudson, 2000,

★ Wall at Storm King, , Andy, Goldsworthy, Thames & Hudson, 2000,

★ Midsummer Snowballs, , , , Thames & Hudson, 2001,

★ Andy Goldsworthy : Refuges D'Art, , , , Editions Artha; Musée départemental de Digne, 2002,

★ Passage, , , , Thames & Hudson, 2004,

★ Enclosure, , , , Thames & Hudson, 2007,

Major exhibitions and installations

Personal life

In 1982, Goldsworthy married Judith Gregson. They had four children and settled in the village of Penpont in the region of Dumfries and Galloway, Dumfriesshire, in southwest Scotland. He now lives there with his partner, Tina Fiske, an art historian whom he met when she came to work with him a few years after he separated from his wife.

Quotations

★ "I find some of my new works disturbing, just as I find nature as a whole disturbing. The landscape is often perceived as pastoral, pretty, beautiful – something to be enjoyed as a backdrop to your weekend before going back to the nitty-gritty of urban life. But anybody who works the land knows it's not like that. Nature can be harsh – difficult and brutal, as well as beautiful. You couldn't walk five minutes from here without coming across something that is dead or decaying."

★ "One of the beauties of art is that it reflects an artist's entire life. What I've learned over the past 30 years is really beginning to inform what I make. I hope that process continues until I die."

See also

★ Environmental art

★ Environmental sculpture

★ Greenmuseum.org

★ Land art

★ Rock balancing

Notes

1. Stonard, John Paul (10 December 2000). "Goldsworthy, Andy". Grove Art Online. Retrieved on May 15, 2007.
2. Natural Talent Tim Adams
3.
★ Andy Goldsworthy at artnet. Retrieved on June 28, 2007.
4. Biography of Andy Goldsworthy at the Cass Sculpture Foundation. Retrieved on June 28, 2007.
5. Biography of Andy Goldsworthy at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.. Retrieved on June 28, 2007.
6. .
7. He's Got the Whole World in His Hands Alastair Sooke
8. Andy Goldsworthy: Art of Nature
9. Andy Goldsworthy at Storm King Art Center
10. {{cite web|title=Andy Goldsworthy on the Roof|url=http://www.metmuseum.org/special/se_event.asp?OccurrenceId={6DD7F1A6-061A-4A92-998A-494C621A2CBD}|publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art|year=2004|accessdate=2007-06-24}}
11. Andy Goldsworthy : Early Works : Leaves, Twigs, Enormous Snowballs and Icicles... Andy Goldworthy's Sculptures are Inherently Surprising and Beautiful Andy Goldsworthy : Nature and Art Combine when the Early Works of the Internationally Renowned Artist Andy Goldsworthy come to Fairfields Art Centre in Basingstoke
12. "Drawn Stone" on the website of Galerie Lelong, New York City, New York
13. The Andy Goldsworthy Project : January 22 – May 15, 2005
14. Andy Goldsworthy : Roof
15. A Wall of Integration, Not Division Stewart Oksenhorn
16. Andy Goldsworthy at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park Gary (photographer) Calton Andy Goldsworthy

References

★ Natural Talent Tim Adams

★ Andy Goldsworthy at artnet

★ Biography of Andy Goldsworthy at the Cass Sculpture Foundation

★ Biography of Andy Goldsworthy at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

★ List of Andy Goldsworthy's solo exhibitions at the Galerie Lelong website

★ He's Got the Whole World in His Hands Alastair Sooke

★ Stonard, John Paul (10 December 2000). "Goldsworthy, Andy". Grove Art Online. Retrieved on May 15, 2007.

Further reading

Articles

★ Andy Goldsworthy : The Beauty of Creation

★ Goldsworthy in Stone

Books

★ Andy Goldsworthy : Touching Nature, , William, Malpas, Crescent Moon, 1995,

★ The Art of Andy Goldsworthy, , William, Malpas, Crescent Moon, 1998,

★ Andy Goldsworthy in Close-Up, , William, Malpas, Crescent Moon, 2003,

External links

General

★ Andy Goldsworthy at ArtisanCam

★ Andy Goldsworthy at artnet

★ Andy Goldsworthy at the Cass Sculpture Foundation

★ Video of Andy Goldsworthy on KQED's Spark

★ Andy Goldsworthy's 1980s work with Common Ground, a UK charity and lobby group promoting local distinctiveness

Art

★ Online preview of the Andy Goldsworthy Digital Catalogue DVD Volume 1: 1976-1986. A collaborative effort involving Goldsworthy, The Crichton Foundation, and the University of Glasgow's Crichton Campus and Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII). The DVD documents, visually and textually, the first ten years of Goldsworthy's ephemeral outdoor practice. It replicates Goldsworthy's "Slide Cabinet Index", and includes previously unpublished material from "Goldsworthy's Sketchbook Diaries".

★ "Wet feathers/Wrapped around a stone/Before the incoming tide, Carrick" (1999). Photograph from the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

★ "Snowballs in Summer" (2000), photographed in Charterhouse Square and Smithfield Market in Smithfield, London, UK. Photographs from the Conway Collection, Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

★ "Three Cairns" (2002), Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa, US.

★ Photographs by Andy Goldsworthy in the UK Government Art Collection.

★ Photographs of Andy Goldsworthy's sculptures at Flickr