Nigel Hall is one of Britain’s most distinguished sculptors. His works, principally made of steel, aluminium or wood are concerned with three dimensional space, mass and line. His abstract drawings and geometric sculptures give as much prominence to voids and shadows as to the solidity of material and each work changes with light and viewpoint reflecting the landscapes or surroundings that inspire them. The internal empty spaces become forms, framed by the sculpture itself.
His first tubular aluminium sculpture was made in 1970 and in subsequent years he has explored the ways in which sculpture alters the viewers perception of space as they move around the work. This awareness with the human relation to form and scale - to distance and to our sense of the vertical and horizontal in landscape - is central and runs throughout his work. This interest in the qualities of spatial construction is balanced by an equally strong preoccupation with the particular sites his sculptures occupy - his works, particularly large-scale pieces - are often conceived for a specific site. His recent work has been less minimal in feel, tending towards more visually robust and solid forms.
Born in 1943 in Bristol, Nigel Hall studied at the West of England College of Art, Bristol from 1960-64 and the Royal College of Art, London from 1964-67. A Harkness fellowship took him to America from 1967-69. Amongst awards received, the Pollock Krasner Award in 1995 and the Jack Goldhill Sculpture Prize at the Royal Academy of Art in 2002. He was head of MA Sculpture at Chelsea School of Art and served on the committee of the British School at Rome. In 2003 he was elected a Royal Academician and awarded an Honorary Doctorate form University of the Arts, London in 2017.
Hall is widely collected and exhibited and has been commissioned for important public sculptures. In 2011 the Royal Academy of Art, London, held a major solo exhibition of his work and he has been included in many landmark national and international Arts Council touring shows and solo or group exhibitions. His work is represented in key corporate collections including Unilever, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America and British Airways and major public collections throughout the UK including the Arts Council of Great Britain, Tate Gallery, British Museum, Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh and worldwide including the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne, Brussels, Kunsthalles Mannheim and Zurich, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Art Institute of Chicago, Dallas Museum of Fine Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney ,Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art and National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul.