Antony Gormley

Antony Gormley was the youngest in a family of seven children, born in Hampstead Garden, a wealthy suburb of London, on August 30th, 1950. He studied at Trinity College in Cambridge, graduating with degrees in archaeology, anthropology and art history. He travelled to India, where he studied Buddhism, and meditation, which he has credited as the most singular important period of his life that continues to inform his work today. When he returned to England, Gormley attended Saint Martin’s School of Art and Goldsmiths, with a postgraduate course in sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art. At Slade, Gormley met fellow artist Vicken Parsons, who became his assistant and later his wife in 1980. She would wrap his body in plaster, reflecting back on his time in India, where he saw people asleep on the streets wrapped in thin cotton saris. Once the plaster had hardened, it was removed and then reinforced with fiberglass and later with sheets of lead to become a hollow body case. He continues to use his own body as a starting point for his sculptures investigating the relationship of the human body and the space it inhibits. Today, Gormley uses body digital scanning, that allows him to hold poses that are energetic and fluid. 

His sculptures feel intimate, though often monumental in scale. He invites people to move amongst his work, to participate. Gormley’s installations are site specific. ‘Sound II’, is a singular man placed in the crypt of Winchester Cathedral, knee-deep in water. Similarly, ‘Another Place’, features figures on Crosby Beach in Liverpool, England. The three-kilometer installation places figures on the shore and in the water, changing as the tide comes in and out. In 2010 Gormley’s ‘Event Horizon’ was installed in Manhattan, NYC. It consisted of 31 sculptures, some at ground level and others on rooftops and ledges in the vicinity of Madison Square Park. The one-hundred life-sized sculptures installed at Houghton Hall in Norfolk in 2024, married contemporary art with the Palladian beauty of this famous English country house. ‘Body Politic’, 2023, explored ‘silence, stillness and materiality and our human need for refuge and freedom of movement. "Each part of this show is an attempt to assess and reflect on our present condition: us now".  

Antony Gormley, along with Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Christo and Jeanne Claude, Igor Mitoraj, and Anish Kapoor are among my favourite twentieth-century artists whose works of sculpture have a power, an energy, that connects us, challenges us, inspires us, and on a basic level, enhances our well-being. Studies consistently prove that art improves our mental health, stimulates our creativity and releases stress. As Gormley reflected, “I see my work as offering a pause, a moment of stillness and reflection in a fast-paced, busy world.”

Gormley’s work has been widely exhibited in many galleries, museums and public spaces. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 1994, became an Order of the British Empire in 1998 and knighted by the Queen in 2014. In 1998 Gormley was paid £800 by Gateshead Council for his now famous Angel of the North sculpture. In 2011, a maquette measuring 39" x 111" x 8" sold at Christie's for close to $4.5 million USD.