Andy Goldsworthy Sold at Auction Prices

Sculptor, Photographer, b. 1956 -

(born 1956, Cheshire, England) British sculptor and photographer. Andy Goldsworthy employs natural materials as ‘found objects’ to produce site-specific sculptures in the open air. Through this art form, called land art, nature is treated as both the subject and the medium of the work. Using the landscape as a raw material, he experiments with a variety of elements found in nature such as leaves, grass, stones, twigs, sand, clay, ice, and snow. He has been making art from the environment, both natural and urban, since the late 1970s. He studied at Bradford College of Art (1974-75) and Preston Polytechnic (1975-78). Thereafter, he toured the world and experimented with alternating climates and the different geographical materials available. Goldsworthy has produced more than 70 exhibitions and projects in places as diverse as the Yorkshire Dales, the Lake District, Grize Fiord in the Northern Territories of Canada, the North Pole, Japan, the Australian outback, St Louis, Missouri and Dumfriesshire, Scotland. In 1986, he moved to Dumfriesshire, where he maintains his residency. Goldsworthy’s ephemeral sculptures not only demonstrate his extraordinary sense of play and of place, but also serve to challenge the permanence of art in its historical pretense. Because of this transience of nature, Goldsworthy uses photography as a form of documentation to capture the essence of his work. Book publication is also an important part of his œuvre; showing all aspects of the production of a given work, each publication is a work of art in its own right. One of Britain’s most popular artists, Andy Goldsworthy’s work has been exhibited in dozens of exhibitions worldwide and documented in numerous major publications. He has made temporary museum installations at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (1997); The Metropolitan Museum or Art (2004), New York; and The Tate, Liverpool (2004), among others. Goldsworthy's other large-scale installations in the United States include Garden of Stones (2003, Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York); Three Cairns (2001-2003, Des Moines Art Center, Iowa); Neuberger Cairn (2001, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York); West Coast Cairn (2002, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego); Stone River (2001, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California); and Storm King Wall (1999, Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York). All of these large-scale commissioned works have their origins in environmentally responsible and ephemeral art.