Michael Craig-Martin

Michael Craig-Martin is one of the most influential and successful British artists of recent decades.

By the end of the 1970s he had created his signature vocabulary of everyday objects depicted in crisp outline in a variety of different forms and mediums, from neon pieces, paintings and sculptures to large-scale wall drawings and highly coloured wall-painting installations and site-specific environments. With an impressive international reputation, his work has featured in many high-profile public and private collections around the world, and his temporary and permanent projects have graced some of the most important museums and public buildings in Europe, Asia and the United States.

In addition to his own success as an artist, Craig-Martin has been a crucial influence on younger generations, having taught at Goldsmiths College, London, for more than two decades, eventually as Millard Professor of Fine Art. Described as the ‘father of the YBA movement’, he taught Damien Hirst, Liam Gillick, Julian Opie, Fiona Rae, Gary Hume and Sarah Lucas and others. He has also been a sought-after curator, with exhibitions at a number of key venues in Britain and Europe. He was a trustee of the Tate Gallery from 1989 to 1999, and in 2001 he was awarded the CBE for his services to art.

Published to coincide with a major exhibition of his work at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, Michael Craig-Martin is a retrospective of the artist’s entire career. Including everything from his early student work to the very latest site-specific installations, it is the most complete monograph on Craig-Martin ever published. Award-winning critic, author and broadcaster Richard Cork, one of the first to write on Craig-Martin’s work in the early 1970s, considers the whole range of his output and its importance to the course of recent British art.

With an extensive account of the artist’s life and work and hundreds of stunning colour photographs throughout, Michael Craig-Martin is the definitive book on one of the most popular artists today and essential reading for anyone interested in the development of art in Britain over the past four decades.

Richard Cork is an award-winning art critic and broadcaster. He is the author of numerous books, including Art Beyond the Gallery in Early Twentieth-Century England (winner of the Bannister Fletcher Award for best art book of the year), David Bomberg and A Bitter Truth: Avant-Garde Art and the Great War.