Nationality
Education
- 1960-64, West of England College of Art, Bristol
- 1964-67, Royal College of Art, London
Taught
1971-81 Royal College of Art, London; Chelsea College of Art and Design
The artist
Nigel Hall was born in Bristol in 1943. His grandfather was a stonemason working on churches and cathedrals and Nigel was able to observe this work, which was to influence his sculptures and drawings. He studied at the West of England College of Art, Bristol (1960-64) and the Royal College of Art, London (1964-67). Following graduation he won a Harkness Fellowship, and until 1969 lived and worked in Los Angeles, travelling in the USA, Canada and Mexico. Hall went on to teach and examine at the Royal College of Art, and served as MA Sculpture course director at Chelsea College of Art and Design.
When the CNAA collection was being refurbished prior to the first public exhibition, in 1990, the sculptor was consulted; the work that had been purchased by NCDAD in 1974 [DETAILS] had been damaged when engineers used it as to hang their coats. It was decided to part exchange the damaged work for a more robust piece, Vertical Excavation. Nigel Hall later became a trustee of the CNAA art collection [CONSULT ARCHIVE].
Hall's first one-man exhibition was held at the Galerie Givaudan, Paris, in 1967, and most of his numerous one-man shows held have been in galleries abroad - in New York, Los Angeles, Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Tokyo, Zurich, Düsseldorf, Cologne and Rome. This international exposure has led to representation in numerous public collections - in the UK, the USA, Asia, Australia and Europe. These include Tate, London; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Kunsthalle, Zurich and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Site-specific projects have featured regularly during Nigel Hall's career. These include a wall sculpture for the entrance to the Australian National Gallery, Canberra; a two-part wall relief in painted and gilded wood for the entrance of Providence Towers, Dallas; and a free-standing steel sculpture for the entrance to Thameslink Road Tunnel, London Docklands, one of his largest. A solo exhibition of his work was held at the Royal Academy in 2011.
