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Richard Deacon
Shortlisted: 1984

Deacon was among a generation of British sculptors who emerged in the early 1980s and went on to achieve national and international acclaim. Rather than carving or modelling, Deacon shapes his sculptures from a variety of materials not traditionally used for sculpture in the past - galvanised steel, laminated wood, corrugated iron, cloth, lino, leather, and polycarbonate. His titles play an important role in his work; they are drawn from sources such as the Bible, poetry, fairy stories and clichés.

Richard Deacon was born in Bangor, Wales in 1949. Between 1969 and 1977 he studied at St Martin's School of Art, completed an MA in Environmental Media at the Royal College of Art, and graduated with a History of Art degree from Chelsea School of Art. Deacon was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1984 for his exhibitions of sculpture, particularly his solo show at Riverside Studios. He won the Prize when he was nominated again in 1987, on the basis of his touring exhibition For Those Who Have Eyes.

This information has been taken from The Turner Prize: Twenty Years, by Virginia Button, Tate Publishing, 2003.

View Richard Deacon in the Tate Collection