Matthew Collings (born 1955) is a British art critic, writer, broadcaster, and artist. He is married to Emma Biggs, with whom he collaborates on art works.

Education

Born in London in 1955, Collings studied at Byam Shaw School of Art, 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 Wor ...

, both in London.

Life and career

He began his career working at '' Artscribe'' first in the production department in 1979 and later taking over as editor, filling that role from 1983 to 1987, bringing international relevance to the magazine. In 1987 he received a Turner Prize commendation for his work on Artscribe. Collings later moved into television working as a producer and presenter on the BBC '' The Late Show'' from 1989 to 1995. In the early 1990s he brought

Martin Kippenberger Martin Kippenberger (25 February 1953 – 7 March 1997) was a German artist known for his extremely prolific output in a wide range of styles and media, superfiction as well as his provocative, jocular and hard-drinking public persona. Kippenb ...

into the BBC studios to create an installation, and he interviewed Georg Herold while this Cologne-based conceptual artist painted a large canvas with beluga caviar. He gave Jeff Koons his first sympathetic exposure on British TV, and Damien Hirst was also introduced for the first time to the UK TV audience by Collings. He wrote and presented documentary films for the BBC on individual artists, such as

Donald Judd Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with minimalism (a term he nonetheless stridently disavowed).Tate Modern websit"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd" Retrieved on February 19, 2009. In ...

Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Ame ...

and

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter ...

, as well as broader historical subjects such as Hitler's "

Degenerate art Degenerate art (german: Entartete Kunst was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party in Germany to describe modern art. During the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, German modernist art, including many works of internationally renowned artists, ...

" exhibition, art looted in the Second World War by Germany and Russia, Situationism, Spain's post-Franco art world and the rise of the Cologne art scene. After leaving the BBC, Collings wrote 'Blimey! From Bohemia to Britpop: The London Artworld from Francis Bacon to Damien Hirst,' which humorously chronicled the rise of the Young British Art (YBA) movement. Published in 1997 by 21, a new company founded by David Bowie, among a group of others, 'Blimey!'was described by Artforum magazine as “…one of the best-selling contemporary-art books ever." (Kate Bush on the YBA Sensation, Artforum, 2004) The article went on to say that Collings "invented the perfect voice to complement YBA: He makes an impact without (crucially) ever appearing to try too hard." The following year, Collings wrote and presented the Channel 4 TV series ''

This is Modern Art ''This Is Modern Art'' was a six-part TV series written and presented by the English art critic Matthew Collings. It was broadcast in 1999 on Channel 4. Episode Overview * I am a Genius - asses the influence of Picasso, Pollock and Warhol ...

'', which won him a Bafta
2000
among other awards. Collings wrote and presented a Channel 4 series in 2003 about the "painterly" stream of Old Master painting, called ''Matt's Old Masters''. A book by the same title accompanied the series. Further Channel 4 series by Collings included ''Impressionism: Revenge of the Nice'' (2004) and ''The Me Generations: Self Portraits,'' (2005). Between 1997 and 2005, Collings presented the

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

TV programme on 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). ...

. In 2007 he wrote and presented the Channel 4 TV series ''This is Civilisation''. In 2009 he appeared on the BBC2 programme "School of Saatchi" a reality TV show for newly trained UK artists. In October 2010, he wrote and presented a

BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream ...

series called ''Renaissance Revolution'', in which he discussed three Renaissance paintings:

Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual ...

's Madonna del Prato;

Hieronymus Bosch Hieronymus Bosch (, ; born Jheronimus van Aken ; – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch/ Netherlandish painter from Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, generally oil on o ...

's ''

The Garden of Earthly Delights ''The Garden of Earthly Delights'' is the modern title given to a triptych oil painting on oak panel painted by the Early Netherlandish master Hieronymus Bosch, between 1490 and 1510, when Bosch was between 40 and 60 years old. It has b ...

''; and

Piero della Francesca Piero della Francesca (, also , ; – 12 October 1492), originally named Piero di Benedetto, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. To contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca ...

's '' The Baptism of Christ''. In 2014 he wrote and presented a 90-minute documentary for BBC4 on abstract art: ''The Rules of Abstraction'' considered early modernist beginnings by

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...

, Hilma af Klint, and others, as well as contemporary continuities, ranging from Fiona Rae to El Anatsui. In the same year, Collings appeared in

Frederick Wiseman Frederick Wiseman (born January 1, 1930) is an American filmmaker, documentarian, and theater director. His work is "devoted primarily to exploring American institutions". He has been called "one of the most important and original filmmakers worki ...

's documentary, ''National Gallery'' composing and rehearsing a piece-to-camera on Turner's ''

The Fighting Temeraire ''The Fighting Temeraire, tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838'' is an oil-on-canvas painting by the English artist Joseph Mallord William Turner, painted in 1838 and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1839. The painting depicts the ...

'', for the documentary ''Turner's Thames'', (2012), which Collings wrote and presented for BBC4. Since 2015, he has been the regular art critic for the ''

Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...

'', replacing

Brian Sewell Brian Alfred Christopher Bushell Sewell (; 15 July 1931 – 19 September 2015) was an English art critic. He wrote for the ''Evening Standard'' and had an acerbic view of conceptual art and the Turner Prize. ''The Guardian'' described him as ...

, who died that year.

Suspension from Labour Party

In 2019 Collings was picked as Parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party for the South West Norfolk constituency, but was suspended by the party a day later. Collings called Lord Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of the UK, a “notorious hate-filled racist" after Sacks repeatedly condemned multiculturalism, celebrated a violent march of illegal settlers against Palestinians in Jerusalem, and named a racist book by Douglas Murray which claimed Enoch Powell "did not go far enough" his "book of the year."

With Emma Biggs

In October 2007, with his wife, Emma Biggs, Collings has curated many art exhibitions. These include an exhibition of

Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is kn ...

's late works at the HN Gallery in London. The paintings were from the 1960s series of ''Painter and Model'' and ''Déjeuner sur l’herbe'' reworkings. According to the catalogue essay, written by Collings, the exhibition aimed to draw attention to Picasso's achievement as a manipulator of form rather than the popular myth of Picasso as a showman or lover or sensationalist genius. Together Biggs and Collings create paintings based on intricate patterns. They have exhibited their work in London and abroad.

Books

* ''Blimey! - From Bohemia to Britpop: London Art World from Francis Bacon to Damien Hirst'', 21 Publishing, 1997 * ''It Hurts - New York Art from Warhol to Now'', 21 Publishing, 2000 * ''

'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Watson-Guptill Publications, 2000 * ''Art Crazy Nation'', 21 Publishing, 2001 * ''Sarah Lucas'', Tate Publishing, 2002 * ''Matt's Old Masters: Titian, Rubens, Velázquez, Hogarth'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003 * ''Criticism'' (with Matthew Arnatt), Rachmaninoff's, 2004 * ''Ron Arad interviewed by Matthew Collings'', Phaidon, 2004 * ''This is Civilisation'', 21 Publishing, 2008

Video and television

* ''Omnibus: Willem de Kooning'' (BBC TV documentary) Narrator 1995 * ''This Is Modern Art'' (Channel 4 TV series documentary) 1998 * ''Hello Culture'' - (Channel 4 TV series documentary) 2001 * ''2003 Matt's Old Masters'' (Channel 4 TV series documentary) Hogarth, Velázquez, Rubens, Titian * ''Impressionism: Revenge of the Nice'' (Channel 4 TV series documentary) 2004 * ''Self Portraits'' (Channel 4 TV series documentary) 2005 * ''This Is Civilisation'' (BBC TV series documentary) 2007 * ''What is Beauty?'' (BBC TV documentary) 2009 * ''Renaissance Revolution: Raphael, Piero, Bosch'' (BBC TV series documentary) 2010 * ''Beautiful Equations'' (BBC4 TV one-hour documentary) 2010 * ''Turner's Thames'' (BBC2 1-hour documentary) * ''The Rules of Abstraction with Matthew Collings'' (BBC4 TV documentary) 2014

References

External links

Contains images and updated information on Collings and Biggs' work
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Collings, Matthew 1955 births Living people Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London Alumni of the Byam Shaw School of Art British art critics British male journalists English contemporary artists