Turner Prize
Founded in 1984, the Turner Prize is awarded annually to the ‘most outstanding contribution’ to British art that took place in the last year.
Biography
Born
1949
Nationality
English
Birth place
Liverpool
Tony Cragg was born in Liverpool and worked as a laboratory technician before studying at the Royal College of Art in London. He moved to Germany in 1977. In the 1980s Cragg became known for his works in which he assembled found pieces of plastic and other detritus into figurative shapes and mounted them on the floor or a wall. From 1984,Cragg began making freestanding sculptures, consisting of stacked geometric wooden frames or a combination of ready-made objects with plastic or stone. He made his first cast sculptures in the late 1980s. Cragg won the Turner Prize in 1988.
Glossary terms
Found material
A found object, sometimes known as the French ‘objet trouve’, is an object which is retrieved or bought by an artist for its intriguing or aesthetic properties. Some artists have transformed found objects into works of art, while others have derived inspiration from collected items. Some of the most famous examples include Marcel Duchamp’s ‘readymade’ sculptures and Tony Cragg’s eclectic assemblages.