John Stezaker | |
|---|---|
 Stezaker, Whitechapel Gallery monograph, 2011 (featuring XXXV, 2007) | |
| Born | 1949 (age 74–75) Worcester, England |
| Education | Slade School of Art (London) |
| Known for | Conceptual art |
John Grenville Stezaker (born 1949) is a British conceptual artist.
Stezaker attended the Slade School of Art in London in his early teens,[1] he graduated with a Higher Diploma in Fine Art in 1973. In the early 1970s, he was among the first wave of British conceptual artists to react against what was then the predominance of Pop art.[2]
Solo exhibitions for Stezaker were rare for sometime, however, in the mid-2000s, his work was rediscovered by the art market;[2] he is now collected by several international collectors and museums.[2]
His work is surreal in tone and is often made using collage and the appropriation of pre-existing images such as postcards, film stills, and publicity photographs.[2] Art historian Julian Stallabrass said, "The contrast at the heart of these works [by Stezaker] is not between represented and real, but between the unknowing primitives of popular culture, and the conscious, ironic artist and viewer of post-modern images."[3] One work included in an exhibition at Salama-Caro Gallery, London, in 1991, depicted an image of a punch clock together with the caption "Why Spend Time on an Exhibition Like This?"[4] Colin Gleadell wrote in The Daily Telegraph in 2007 that Stezaker "is now being hailed as a major influence on the Young British Art movement," in reference to Young British Artists.[2]
Until 2006, Stezaker was Senior Tutor in Critical and Historical Studies at the Royal College of Art in London.
