Tim Head

Born in London, Head was brought up in Yorkshire.{{cite book |last1=Bracewell |first1=Michael |title=Re-make/Re-model: Art, Pop, Fashion and the making of Roxy Music, 1953-1972 |date=17 February 2011 |publisher=Faber & Faber |isbn=978-0-571-27670-7 |page=172 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0SPmCsxVw2EC&pg=PA172 |language=en}} He studied at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne from 1965 to 1969.{{cite book |last1=Buckman |first1=David |title=Artists in Britain Since 1945|volume=1 A to L |date=2006 |publisher=Art Dictionaries Ltd |location=Bristol |isbn=978-0-9532609-5-9 |page=708 |language=en}} There the professor was Kenneth Rowntree, whose French-influenced work did not appeal; his other teachers included Richard Hamilton who enthused him, and Ian Stephenson. He was among the group of student friends of Roxy Music frontman Bryan Ferry at the university, along with the older artist Stephen Buckley.{{cite book |last1=Bracewell |first1=Michael |title=Re-make/Re-model: Art, Pop, Fashion and the making of Roxy Music, 1953-1972 |date=17 February 2011 |publisher=Faber & Faber |isbn=978-0-571-27670-7 |page=54 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0SPmCsxVw2EC&pg=PA54 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Buckman |first1=David |title=Artists in Britain Since 1945|volume=1 A to L |date=2006 |publisher=Art Dictionaries Ltd |location=Bristol |isbn=978-0-9532609-5-9 |page=216 |language=en}} Others, besides Buckley, Ferry and Head, who were influenced by Hamilton at Newcastle were the students Rita Donagh and the sculptor Tony Carter, and Mark Lancaster who was teaching.{{cite book |title=Pop Art |date=1991 |publisher=Royal Academy of Arts |page=280 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Buckman |first1=David |title=Artists in Britain Since 1945|volume=1 A to L |date=2006 |publisher=Art Dictionaries Ltd |location=Bristol |isbn=978-0-9532609-5-9 |page=257 |language=en}}

Head worked on exhibition layout at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in summer 1967, for Niki de Saint Phalle.{{cite book |last1=Emanuel |first1=Muriel |last2=Ammann |first2=Jean Christophe |title=Contemporary Artists |date=1983 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-0-333-30773-1 |language=en}} The following year he went to New York City, where he worked as a summer assistant to Claes Oldenburg. He met Robert Smithson, Richard Serra, Eva Hesse, Sol LeWitt, John Cale and others. Head attended Saint Martin's School of Art, London, in 1969–1970; he studied on the Advanced Sculpture Course run by Barry Flanagan.

In 1971 he worked as an assistant to Robert Morris on his Tate Gallery show. He then taught at Goldsmiths College, London, from 1971 to 1979. He taught at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1976 to 2011.{{cite web |title=TIM HEAD : SELECTED BIOGRAPHY |url=http://www.timhead.net/selbiog.htm |website=www.timhead.net}}

During the 1970s Head contributed to the interest in "projected art"{{cite web |last1=Reynolds |first1=Lucy |title=Experimental fields of light and shadow – Tate Etc |url=https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-25-summer-2012/experimental-fields-light-and-shadow |website=Tate}} with "installations in which photos of objects in gallery spaces were projected on to those same objects and spaces."{{cite book |last1=Walker |first1=John Albert |title=Glossary of Art, Architecture and Design Since 1945 |date=1992 |publisher=Library Association Publishing |isbn=978-0-85365-639-5 |page=2003 |language=en}} In 1987 he won the 15th John Moores Painting Prize for his work "Cow Mutations".{{cite web |url=http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/johnmoores/previouswinners/tim_head.asp |title='Cow Mutations', Tim Head, previous winner of the John Moores Prize 1987 |accessdate=2009-03-27 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060221041035/http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/johnmoores/previouswinners/tim_head.asp |archivedate=2006-02-21 }} John Moores Prize. The 2002 video installation Treacherous Light used software to make pixel-wise colour changes.{{cite book |last1=Curtis |first1=David |title=A History of Artists' Film and Video in Britain |date=25 July 2019 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-83871-416-1 |page=144 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zQj8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA144-IA7 |language=en}}

Head has exhibited widely internationally. His solo shows include MoMA, Oxford (1972); Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1974 and 1992); British Pavilion, Venice Biennale (1980); ICA, London (1985); and Kunstverein Freiburg, Germany, and touring (1995). He has taken part in group shows including Documenta VI, Kassel (1977); British Art Now: An American Perspective, Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York, and Royal Academy, London (1980); The British Art Show, Arts Council Tour (1984); Gambler, Building One, London (1990);Live in Your Head: Concept and Experiment in Britain 1965-75, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (2000);Kimmelman, Michael (29 April 2003). "Critic's Notebook; London Is Agog Over Art, Especially Saatchi's" The New York Times; and The Indiscipline of Painting Tate St. Ives{{cite web |last1=Clark |first1=Martin |last2=Sturgis |first2=Daniel|last3=Shalgosky |first3=Sarah|author-link2=Daniel Sturgis |title=The Indiscipline of Painting: International Abstraction from the 1960s to Now |url=https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-st-ives/exhibition/indiscipline-painting |website=Tate |access-date=20 May 2021}} touring to Warwick Art Centre (2011/12).

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.timhead.net/ Tim Head Website]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060603181509/http://collection.britishcouncil.org/html/artist/artist.aspx?id=18710 Tim Head] via British Council
• [http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/head_tim.html Tim Head] via Artcyclopedia
• [http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ArtistWorks?cgroupid=999999961&artistid=1259 Tim Head] via Tate Collection

{{John Moores Painting Prize winners}}{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Head, Tim}}

Category:English artists

Category:English contemporary artists

Category:Alumni of Newcastle University

Category:1946 births

Category:Living people

Category:Alumni of Saint Martin's School of Art

Category:Academics of Goldsmiths, University of London

Category:John Moores Painting Prize winners