RICHARD LONG

b. 1945 in Bristol, England

Lives and works in Bristol, England

 

Painter and sculptor Richard Long is regarded as one of Britain’s most prominent Land artists, known for his permanent and transient works in several mediums, which address the complex relationship between humans and nature. Long was born in Bristol, and studied at the West of England School of Art and St. Martin’s School of Art in London. Employing natural materials—ranging from water, rocks, and mud in a variety of mediums, such as sculpture, installation, text, and paintings—Long creates works that trace his movement, largely walking on foot, through different landscapes in England, Scotland, and the western United States.

 

Throughout his works, walking becomes a documented art form, through which he can explore the transience of time, distance, and place, seen in both the physical landscape as well as art forms. He has created several public works on commission, including pieces for the Hearst Building in New York and at Houghton Hall in Norfolk. In 1989, he was awarded the Turner Prize. Long currently lives and works in Bristol.

 

He has had numerous major solo exhibitions, including retrospectives, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1986), the Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris (1993), the Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo (1996), the Museo di Arte, Trento, Italy (2000), the Museu Serralves, Portugal (2001), Tate St. Ives, Cornwall (2002), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2006), Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2007), Musée d’Art moderne et d’Art contemporain de Nice (2008), and Tate, London (2009), National Gallery of South Africa, Cape Town (2010), Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (2011), Faena Arts Centre, Buenos Aires (2014), Judd Foundation, New York (2016), De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilberg (2019), Museum Leuven, Belgium (2021), Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven (2022), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (2023), Kloster Schönthal, Langenbruck, Switzerland (2025).