Fiona Rae (born 10 October 1963) is a Hong Kong-born British artist. She is one of the

Young British Artists The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of the YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsm ...

(YBAs) who rose to prominence in the 1990s. Throughout her career, she has been known for having a portfolio of work that includes elements of energy, and complexity. Her work is known for aiming at expanding the modern traditions of painting.

Life and career

Rae was born in Hong Kong and also lived in Indonesia before moving to England in 1970. After moving to England she attended Downe House which is an all girls boarding school in Berkshire. She then attended Croydon College of Art to study a Foundation Course (1983–1984) and

Goldsmiths College Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wo ...

(1984–1987), where she completed a BA (Hons) Fine Art.

Young British Artist

In 1988, she participated in Freeze, an art exhibition organised by

Damien Hirst Damien Steven Hirst (; né Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingd ...

in London Docklands; the exhibition helped launch a generation of artists who became known as Young British Artists or YBAs. In 1991, Rae was shortlisted for the

Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...

, and in 1993 she was nominated for the Austrian Eliette Von Karajan Prize for Young Painters. She was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 2002 and is referred to as a Royal Academician allowing the use of RA after her name. In 2002 she was appointed a Tate Artist Trustee between 2005 and 2009. She was commissioned by

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...

to create a 10-metre

triptych A triptych ( ; from the Greek adjective ''τρίπτυχον'' "''triptukhon''" ("three-fold"), from ''tri'', i.e., "three" and ''ptysso'', i.e., "to fold" or ''ptyx'', i.e., "fold") is a work of art (usually a panel painting) that is divided ...

''Shadowland'' for the restaurant there in 2002. In December 2011, she was appointed Professor of Painting at the Royal Academy, one of the first two female professors since the Academy was founded in 1768. Rae has exhibited extensively in museums and galleries internationally and her work is held in public and private collections worldwide. Of her work, William Corwin summarises, "Rae's paintings are very much objects to be admired; windows into worlds in which she is mistress, giving the viewer over to a semi-recognizable, occasionally comforting, but mostly alien dreamscape."

Public collections

*Tate Collection: five works: ‘Untitled (yellow)’, 1990, ‘Untitled (grey and brown)’, 1991, ‘Untitled (emergency room)’, 1996, ‘Night Vision', 1998, ‘Shadowland', 2002 * Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery; 'Dark Star', (2000) *

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was desig ...

, Washington D.C.; 'Sunburst Finish' (1997) * Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK; 'Untitled (six on brown)' * Sintra Museum of Modern Art: The Berardo Collection, Sintra, Portugal *

Southampton City Art Gallery The Southampton City Art Gallery is an art gallery in Southampton, southern England. It is located in the Civic Centre on Commercial Road. The gallery opened in 1939 with much of the initial funding from the gallery coming from two bequests, o ...

, England (6/1998); Fast Breeder

Solo exhibitions

Following the success of 'Freeze' in 1988, Rae's paintings have appeared in solo shows internationally. * 'Fiona Rae' Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (1992) * 'Fiona Rae' at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1993–1994) * 'Fiona Rae', Carré d'Art Musée d'art contemporain de Nîmes, France (2002–2003)

Publications

Aside from numerous exhibition catalogues, Rae’s paintings are discussed in many publications including: * 1996 – Morgan, Stuart, "Fiona Rae: Playing for Time", What the Butler Saw, Ian Hunt (ed.), London, UK: Durian Publications * 1996 – The 20th-Century Art Book, London, UK, Phaidon Press * 1999 – Stallabrass, Julian, High Art Lite: British Art in the 1990s, Verso London and New York * 1997 – Button, Virginia, The Turner Prize, London, UK, Tate Gallery Publishing * 2004 – Tate Women Artists, text by Alicia Foster, London, UK, Tate Gallery Publishing * 2006 – Tate Modern: The Handbook, Frances Morris (ed.), texts by Michael Craig-Martin, Andrew Marr and Sheena Wagstaff, London, UK, Tate Publishing * 2007 – The Turner Prize. Revised Edition, Virginia Button, London, UK, Tate Publishing * 2007 – Open Space: Art in the Public Realm in London 1995–2005, Jemima Montagu (ed.), London, UK, Arts Council England and Central London Partnership * 2009 – Painting Today, Tony Godfrey (ed.), London, UK, Phaidon Press * 2010 – Barret, Terry, Making Art: Form and Meaning, New York City: McGraw-Hill Publishers * 2010 – Pooke, Grant, Contemporary British Art: An Introduction, London, UK: Routledge * 2012 – Fiona Rae: maybe you can live on the moon in the next century, London, UK:

Ridinghouse Ridinghouse is a British book publisher specialising in art. Ridinghouse’s publications are distributed by Cornerhouse in the UK and Europe, and by RAM Publications + Distribution, Inc. in North America. Company history Ridinghouse was foun ...

in association with Leeds Art Gallery.

References

External links

Artists site
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rae, Fiona 1963 births Living people Royal Academicians British women painters British contemporary painters Hong Kong people Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London English contemporary artists 20th-century British women artists 21st-century British women artists