28 Facts About Cornelia Parker

Cornelia Parker studied at the Gloucestershire College of Art and Design and Wolverhampton Polytechnic.

Cornelia Parker received her MFA from Reading University in 1982 and honorary doctorates from the University of Wolverhampton in 2000, the University of Birmingham, the University of Gloucestershire and the University of Manchester.

In 1997, Parker was shortlisted for the Turner Prize along with Christine Borland, Angela Bulloch, and Gillian Wearing.

Cornelia Parker was appointed Honorary Fellow at Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 2020.

Cornelia Parker has one daughter, and lives and works in London.

Cornelia Parker's mother was German and was a nurse in the Luftwaffe during the Second World War.

In contrast, in 1997 at the Turner Prize exhibition, Cornelia Parker exhibited Mass, suspending the charred remains of a church that had been struck by lightning in Texas.

Eight years later, Cornelia Parker made a companion piece "Anti-Mass", using charcoal from a black congregation church in Kentucky, which had been destroyed by arson.

Cornelia Parker asked Parker to collaborate with her on the project, and to create an installation in which she could sleep.

Cornelia Parker filled the Serpentine with glass cases containing relics that belonged to famous historical figures, such as the pillow and blanket from Freud's couch, Mrs Simpson's ice skates, Charles Dickens' quill pen and Queen Victoria's stocking.

Cornelia Parker re-staged this piece as part of her mid-career retrospective at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, in 2015 and at Tate Britain in 2022.

In 2009, for the opening of Jupiter Artland, a sculpture park near Edinburgh, Cornelia Parker created a firework display titled Nocturne: A Moon Landing containing a lunar meteorite.

Whilst Magna Carta was on display at the British Library, Cornelia Parker presented One More Time, a Terrace Wires commission for St Pancras International Station, London, co-presented by HS1 Ltd.

In 2016 Cornelia Parker became the first female artist to be commissioned to create a new work for the Roof Garden of the Met in New York.

Cornelia Parker continued her work as a curator for the Found exhibition for The Foundling Museum, which incorporated sixty-eight artists from an array of creative disciplines, as well as contributing her own piece, A Little Drop of Gin.

Cornelia Parker was named Artist of the Year in the 2016 Apollo Awards for her involvement and contributions in the art world.

In May 2015, Cornelia Parker was included in the Brilliant Ideas series broadcast by Bloomberg TV in which she reveals her inspirations and discusses some of her best-loved works.

On 1 May 2017 Cornelia Parker was chosen as the official election artist for the 2017 United Kingdom general election; she was the first woman to take on that role.

In 2017, Cornelia Parker made a series of blackboard drawings with the collaboration of 5- to 10-year-old schoolchildren from Torriano Primary School.

In November 2019 Cornelia Parker opened her first major retrospective exhibition in Australia at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney for the Tenth Sydney International Art Series.

In May 2022 Cornelia Parker exhibited 100 artworks at Tate Britain in her largest solo exhibition to date.

In 2011 Cornelia Parker curated an exhibition titled Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain for the Collections Gallery at the Whitechapel Gallery in London using selected works from the Government Art Collection arranged as a colour spectrum.

In 2016, as part of her Hogarth Fellowship at the Foundling Museum, Cornelia Parker curated a group exhibition titled FOUND presenting works from over sixty artists from a range of creative disciplines, asked to respond to the theme of "found", reflecting on the museum's heritage.

In 2010 Cornelia Parker was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts, London and appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2010 Birthday Honours.

Cornelia Parker won the Artist of the Year Apollo Award in 2016.

Cornelia Parker was named the official Election Artist for the 2017 general election in the United Kingdom.

Cornelia Parker created two films and a series of 14 photographic works as a result of this commission, which were previewed on BBC Newsnight on 2 February 2018 and made available online via the UK Parliament website prior to an exhibition in Westminster Hall.

Cornelia Parker was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to the arts.