A major player in the movement of New British Sculpture towards the end of the 1970s, Richard Wentworth transforms found and industrial objects, redefining their presence within sculpture and everyday life. Like his contemporaries Bill Woodrow and Tony Cragg, Wentworth developed a complex relationship with found objects, subverting their original functions, and reforming conventional systems of categorization. His sculptural arrangements, such as light bulbs encased in wire, gardening tools stuck into furniture, often feature everyday objects placed in a high-art context. His photographs elevate the mundane, capturing ephemeral accidents and unusual juxtapositions with aplomb. 

Richard Wentworth became Master of Drawing at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford University, and in 2009 was appointed Professor and Head of the Royal College of Art’s Sculpture Department. In 2011, Richard Wentworth was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). Notable past exhibitions include solo shows at Serpentine Gallery, London, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Bonner Kunstverein, Tate Liverpool, Whitechapel Gallery, London, and Black Maria, a major public commission, installed in 2013 for a month in King’s Cross, London. Group exhibitions include the 25th Bienal de São Paulo (2002), the 50th and 53rd Venice Biennales (2003, 2009). He was awarded the Mark Rothko Memorial in 1974 and the Berlin DAAD Fellowship in 1993-94.