This special exhibition by internationally renowned artist Sir Tony Cragg included several large-scale sculptures in the Gardens, as well as sculptures and works on paper in the historic rooms of the House.
This was Castle Howard’s first ever headline contemporary sculpture exhibition. Visitors enjoyed the artworks set against the backdrop of the beautiful Gardens and landscapes, and inside the magnificent House.
Our limited-edition Tony Cragg print, Bluescape, is available to purchase from the House Gift Shop, or online.
The print is exclusive to Castle Howard, with each one of only 50 signed and numbered. Exhibition Curator Dr Jon Wood said: ‘Bluescape continues Cragg’s fascination with anthropomorphism and with the representation of the landscape and the human body in union. This is a characteristic feature of his column sculptures where we see profiles of human heads and eroded geological formations merging together to become one. Several such sculptures, in polished stainless steel and wood, are presently on display at Caste Howard. Bluescape carries a similar ambiguity. It presents a landscape of hills and clouds, which also reads as two faces, each looking up and down at the other. In keeping with this duality, Cragg has used the vertical portrait format for this landscape image, further underlining the combination of genres, and of the admixture of people and places.’ Bluescape is available to purchase in the House Gift Shop or online with delivery available to the UK, Europe, and the USA. Castle Howard Members can earn Membership Points on their purchase when they buy from our House Gift Shop.
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The artworks on display celebrated Cragg’s rich imagination, showing the diverse ways and materials he uses to make sculpture. The artworks were surprising, hybrid forms that challenged our thoughts and emotions. The exhibition featured interesting shapes, some up to six metres tall, made from different materials including steel, bronze, glass, and wood, with works on paper in the main House.
Tony Cragg has been working and exhibiting since 1969. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 1988, the prestigious Praemium Imperiale Award, Tokyo in 2007 and the Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award in 2017. He has exhibited extensively in museums worldwide: Tate Gallery, London (1988), Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven and Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Duesseldorf (1989), Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh and Musée du Louvre, Paris (2011), Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg (2013), Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal and Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (2016) and Boboli Gardens, Florence (2019).
He has lived in Wuppertal, Germany since 1977.
More about Tony Cragg
Tony Cragg at Castle Howard was supported by:
Industrial Nature, Aluminium, 2024. Tony Cragg at Castle Howard.
Outspan, Bronze, 2008. Tony Cragg at Castle Howard.
Runner, Bronze, 2015. Tony Cragg at Castle Howard.