Alison Wilding

Born in Blackburn[?] in Lancashire, Wilding studied at the Nottingham College of Art, the Ravensbourne College of Art and Design in Chislehurst and, from 1970 to 1973, the Royal College of Art[?] in London. She rose to prominence around the late 1970s, about the same time as Richard Deacon, Tony Cragg, Bill Woodrow and others.

Wildings' early works are multi-media installations, but she is best known for her later abstract sculptures which use a wide variety of materials: as well as traditional materials such as wood, stone and bronze, she has used steel, wax, silk and other materials. These are often used in unusual combinations: Stormy Weather (1987), for example, is made from pigment, beeswax and oil rubbed into galvanised steel[?].

In 1991, a major retrospective of Wilding's work, Alison Wilding: Immersion – Sculpture from Ten Years, was held at Tate Liverpool. She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1992, and made a Royal Academician in 1999.