Talk:Tony Cragg

Content suggestions
Please see below a link to an image of one of Tony Cragg's seminal works, titled 'Red Indian', for inclusion in the article. 13:45, 20 October 2014 (UTC)AndrewViolaBowen (talk)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tony_Cragg,_Red_Indian,_1982-3,_plastic,_314_x_198_cm._%C2%A9_Tony_Cragg,_Lisson_Gallery,_London.jpg

Suggested content (below) for the introduction to Tony Cragg's article:

Anthony Cragg, CBE RA (born 9 April, 1949) is a British sculptor. Born in Liverpool in 1949, Cragg has lived and worked in Wuppertal, Germany, since the late 1970s. He has a BA from Wimbledon School of Art (1973) and a MA from Royal College of Art (1977). Cragg represented Britain in the 43rd International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia in 1988 and in the same year he was awarded the Turner Prize at Tate Gallery in London. He was elected a Royal Academician in 1994, made a CBE in 2003 and received the 1st Class Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2012. Among many major solo exhibitions Cragg has shown at CAFA Museum in Beijing (2012), Stedelijk van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven (1991) and Tate Gallery in London (1988).

AndrewViolaBowen (talk) 14:22, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you for using the talk page to make a suggestion, . But I'm afraid we can't use the text you propose because it is mostly copied from (or in any case identical to) the text on this page. Please understand that Wikipedia policy does not allow the insertion of other people's copyright text into its pages - this is really quite important, and editors who repeatedly fail to understand it do end up getting blocked from editing. I will try to add a bit more to the page tomorrow. If there are articles or reviews that you can suggest as sources for expansion, please do so (do you keep a press file for your artists?). If you can get the necessary permissions to donate images of works or indeed of Cragg himself to Commons they could then be added to the article (within reason); I'm doubtful about using the image you've uploaded as fair use, but then I know damn-all about image copyrights. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 01:13, 25 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Hello - Thank you for your message. The text I proposed is very similar to the text on this page because they are both bios and refer to key/factual events in Cragg's career. Regardless, I am glad that the page is up and running again. Lisson do have a press file for Tony Cragg but they are clippings rather than 'live' links to web pages. I will source as many as I can and upload them on this talk page each week. For now, however, please find suggested content (below)

Cragg’s artistic training started in 1969, when he joined the foundation course at Gloucester College of Art and Design in Cheltenham. He progressed on to an undergraduate course at Wimbledon School of Art (1970-73), where he was taught by artist Roger Ackling, who introduced Cragg to the sculptors Richard Long, Bill Woodrow and Richard Deacon. Cragg became associated with these sculptors in the New British Sculpture movement that gained currency in the 1980s. In 1973 Cragg won a place on the post-graduate sculpture course at Royal College of Art in London. AndrewViolaBowen (talk) 13:52, 29 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Hello - further to my previous message, do you have a time frame for when the article will be completed? A colleague will be visiting Tony in Wuppertal tomorrow and he is very keen to hear when it will be completed. In the meantime, I will keep posting links to sources.AndrewViolaBowen (talk) 16:29, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello - please find links to online articles below

The Daily Telegraph 28th August 2012 Page 22 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/9503576/Tony-Cragg-Sculptor-who-looks-beneath-the-surface.html

Tony Cragg and the sculpture wars Guardian.co.uk 23rd July 2011 http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/jul/22/tony-cragg-sculpture-scottish-national

Guardian.co.uk 7th August 2011 http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/aug/07/tony-cragg-robert-rauschenberg AndrewViolaBowen (talk) 14:45, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you,, those are just the sort of source we can use (and one of them is already in the article). Unfortunately they don't add a great deal of new information. As for when this will be "completed", you might like to read Wikipedia will be ready real soon now. I will probably try to do some more to this page at some point if no-one else gets to it first; that definitely will not be before tomorrow! Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 16:00, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello. I have been advised to limit myself to uploading 'suggested content' onto the talk page. Please may you approve the (below) text and/or suggest improvements that need to be made to it. I have added in new sources and I have included additional ones at the end of my post.

Cragg’s early works, dating from 1975 to 1978, were ‘montages’ of raw materials and manufactured goods; such as the ‘piles’, ‘stacks’ and ‘heaps’ of discarded materials that he would form into pure volumetric cubes (as in Stack, 1975). By 1978 he was presenting figures and forms made up of scraps of urban industrial products and artefacts according to their artificial colour and profile. Cragg often outlined the shapes of found images – such as an American Indian, as in Red Indian (1982-3) – on the ground or on the walls of exhibition spaces, often composed chromatically. One of such signature works, titled Britain Seen From the North (1981), features the outline of the island of Great Britain, assembled from multicolored plastic detritus in relief on the wall, orientated so that Northern Britain is positioned to the left. To the left of the island is the figure of man, apparently Cragg himself, looking at the country from the position of an outsider. The piece is often interpreted as commenting on the economic difficulties Britain was going through at the time, under Thatcherism, which had particular effect in the north.

After moving to Germany in the late 1970s, Cragg had several solo exhibitions (including his first) at Lisson Gallery, London (1979); Lützozstr. Situation, Berlin (1979) and Künstlerhaus Weidenallee, Hamburg (1979). He also exhibited in seminal group shows including the Silver Jubilee Sculpture Show, Battersea Park, London (1977); Europa-Kunst der 80er Jahre, Stuttgart (1979); Kunst in Europa na ’68, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Gent (1980) and L’art degli anni Settanta/Aperto ’80, Venice Biennale (1980).

In the early 1980s Cragg exhibited at Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol (1980); Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1980); Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal (1981); Institute of Contemporary Art, London (1982); Documenta 7, Kassel (1982) and the Hayward and Serpentine Galleries, London (1983). Since then Cragg has exhibited extensively at many of world’s most important art institutions. By the end of the decade Cragg received the Turner Price at the Tate Gallery in London (1988); represented Britain at the 42. Venice Biennale (1988) and was appointed Professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (1988-2001).

Cragg gradually moved away from installation art in the latter part of the 1980s and thereafter began making his first sculptures in more traditional materials such as cast iron, bronze, glass and stone; such as Terris Novalis (1991), Spirogyra (1992), Complete Omnivore (1993), Passers-by (1994), Administered Landscape (1994), Boy (1996), Zufuhr (1996), Forminifera (1997), Flotsam (1998) and Secretions (1998). Throughout the 1990s Cragg continued to develop two broad bodies of work – Early Forms and Rational Beings. The Early Forms series investigate the possibilities of manipulating everyday, familiar vessels (such as vases or plastic bottles) and the ways in which they morph into and around themselves. The Rational Beings sculptures take the outline of human gestures or profiles as a point of departure for further elaborations on natural processes. These works can be characterized as having clear organic qualities while simultaneously being rigorously geometric, as most forms found in nature are and as a consequence so are man-made forms. In the early 1990s, Cragg was awarded the Chevalier des Arts Lettres (1992) and appointed Royal Academician in London (1994). During this decade of his career he exhibited at the 45. Venice Biennale (1993); The National Gallery, Prague (1995); MNAM, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1996); MACBA, Barcelona (1997) and the Royal Academy, London (1999).

Since 2000 Cragg has created a host of new works that conform to the continuity of his artistic trajectory. Amongst new developments in his oeuvre there is an increase in sculptures that can be exhibited outdoors; more works wrought from bronze, steel, stone, wood and glass; as well as a vigorous return to his initial interest in art – that of drawing.

Additional sources

Independent on Sunday pg 57 14th August 2011 Charles Darwent http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/tony-cragg-scottish-national-gallery-of-modern-art-edinburgh-2337159.html

www.nytimes.com 13th October 2010 Roderick Conway Morris http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/arts/14iht-rartcragg.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

New Scientist Pg 46 30th July 2011 http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2011/08/sculpting-shapes-that-dont-exist.html

Telegraph.co.uk 15th August 2011

The Telegraph 30th July 2011 pg 11

Abuse of talk page
The huge amounts of proposed text material, hopefully not copied from catalogues and the like, should certainly not be dropped onto a talk page. As I understand it, it is rather specific points that should be discussed here.Retal (talk) 17:57, 6 August 2021 (UTC)