Robert Wilson

Born in Waco, Texas, Robert Wilson is among the world’s foremost theater and visual artists. His works for the stage unconventionally integrate a wide variety of artistic media, including dance, movement, lighting, sculpture, music, and text. While known for creating highly acclaimed theatrical pieces, Wilson’s work is firmly rooted in the fine arts. His drawings, paintings, and sculptures have been presented around the world in hundreds of solo and group exhibitions.

The New York Times described Robert Wilson as “a towering figure in the world of experimental theater and an explorer in the uses of time and space on stage. Transcending theatrical convention, he draws in other performance and graphic arts, which coalesce into an integrated tapestry of images and sounds.” Susan Sontag has said of Wilson’s work, “it has the signature of a major artistic creation. I can’t think of any body of work as large or as influential.”

After being educated at the University of Texas and Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, Wilson has been honored with numerous awards for excellence, including a Pulitzer Prize nomination, two Premio Ubu awards, the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale, and an Olivier Award. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the German Academy of the Arts, and holds 8 Honorary Doctorate degrees. France pronounced him Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (2003) and Officer of the Legion of Honor (2014); Germany awarded him the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit (2014).

Robert Wilson has designed and directed operas at La Scala in Milan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Opéra Bastille in Paris, the Zürich Opera, the Hamburg State Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Houston Grand Opera, and the Moscow Bolshoi, among others. His drawings, prints, videos, and sculptures are held in private collections and museums throughout the world, notably The Metropolitan Museum of Art; MoMA; the Whitney Museum of Contemporary Art; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Art Institute of Chicago; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Vitra Design Museum; Hamburger Bahnhof Museum for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Menil Foundation Collection, Houston.