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.