Marie Elisabeth Chichester Rideal (born 1954 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire)^[1][2] is a British artist, art historian, educator and author. She is a Professor in Fine Art in the Painting Department at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London and was a lecturer and educational resource writer at the National Portrait Gallery, London. She is known for her early artwork, fine art photography made using a photo-booth. Rideal currently lives and works in London, England.

Early life and education

Born in May 1954 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England. Rideal attended Exeter University and art college and received her B.A. in Fine Arts and English Literature in 1976 and later earned her Post Graduate Certificate in Education in 1978.^[3] Since 1992 she has been lecturing at Slade School of Fine Art, which is part of University College London.^[3]

Photography

In 1985, Rideal started working exclusively with the photo-booth, creating a number of public art projects and investigating ways of using photographic strip digits within photographic collages literally making light drawings using hand gestures in the photo-booth.^[4] Many artists have toyed with this low-budget technology, but few have explored its formal possibilities so extensively as this photographer.^[5]

Rideal's artwork has been collected by many public institutions, including Tate Modern, British Museum, BBC, Bibliothèque Nationale, Cambridge University Library, the Library of Congress, the National Portrait Gallery (London), Vancouver Art Gallery (Canada), New York Public Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, Brandts Museum of Photographic Art (Denmark) and more.^[6]

Additionally, Rideal's artwork has been collected by private institutions including; The Pfizer, Inc. Collection, the Seagram Collection, the Microsoft Art Collection, and the JP Morgan Chase Collection.^[6]