Tuesday ART ATTACK- Tony Cragg "Stack"

Tony Cragg was born on April 9th 1949 in Liverpool, England. Beginning in 1969 he studied art at the Gloucestershire College of Art and Design in Gloucestershire followed by attending the Wimbledon School of Art from 1970-1973 specializing in sculpture. During the following years, Cragg spent his time in a concentrated sculptural program at the Royal College of Art until 1977. 

Having completed school Cragg began working with sculptural installation. By combining different mixed media materials Cragg created complex reliefs on the walls of galleries and walls around his neighborhood in England. 

At the turn of the decade Cragg left England to pursue a teaching job that he was offered at the Kunstakademie of Dusseldorf in Germany. While in Germany, Cragg began to turn away from his focus on installation sculpture and started to concentrate on the power of individual pieces and the media used. Cragg continued to play off of this idea throughout the 1980s; taking everyday objects, reshaping them to create more dynamic forms, but still keeping them recognizable in order to evoke a subconscious response from the viewer. 

In more recent times Cragg's work has become more figurative. Using the figure as loose guidelines, Cragg will create abstract sculpture reminiscent of the human form that speaks to the human struggles of trying to obtain balance and stability in the modern world. Cragg is still alive and making today while he lives and teaches in Germany.