1. Michael Craig-Martin is known for fostering and adopting the Young British Artists, many of whom he taught, and for his conceptual artwork, An Oak Tree.
19 Facts About Michael Craig-Martin
1. 2.
Michael Craig-Martin is an emeritus Professor of Fine Art at Goldsmiths.
3.
Michael Craig-Martin was born in Dublin, but spent most of his childhood in Washington, DC For eight years, he attended a Roman Catholic primary school, which was operated by religious sisters, followed by the English Benedictine Priory School, where pupils were encouraged to look at religious imagery in illuminated glass panels and stained-glass windows.
4.
Michael Craig-Martin gained an interest in art through one of the priests, who was an artist, and was strongly impressed by a display in the Phillips Collection of work by Mark Rothko.
5.
Michael Craig-Martin's parents had no inclinations towards art, although they did have on display in their home Picasso's Greedy Child.
6.
In mid-1961 Michael Craig-Martin studied art at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris, and in the autumn he began a painting course at Yale University, where the teaching was strongly influenced by the multi-disciplinary experimentation and minimalist theories on colour and form of Josef Albers, a former head of department.
7.
Michael Craig-Martin later said, "Everything I know about colour comes from that course".
8.
From 1973, Michael Craig-Martin was a tutor at Goldsmiths College and, during the 1980s, was a significant influence on the emerging YBA generation, including Damien Hirst.
9.
Michael Craig-Martin was helpful in promoting the Freeze show to established art-world figures.
10.
Michael Craig-Martin has been a trustee of the Tate Gallery and is a trustee of the National Art Collections Fund.
11.
Since 2011, Michael Craig-Martin has been working on powder-coated steel forms that describe everyday objects and appear like line drawings in the air.
12.
Michael Craig-Martin had his first one-man exhibition at the Rowan Gallery in London in 1969.
13.
Michael Craig-Martin represented Britain at the Sao Paulo Art Biennial in 1998.
14.
Michael Craig-Martin made his American debut in the "Projects" series at the Museum of Modern Art.
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Michael Craig-Martin met Jann Hashey while at Yale University, and married her in 1963.
16.
The marriage ended in 1976 when Michael Craig-Martin came out as gay.
17.
Michael Craig-Martin is one-eighth Chinese, as his great-grandmother was a native of Wuhan, China.
18.
Michael Craig-Martin was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2001 Birthday Honours.
19.
Michael Craig-Martin was knighted in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to art.