Michael Craig-Martin

Irish-born conceptual artist and painter born in Dublin in 1941 who studied at Yale University alongside Brice Marden, Richard Serra, and Jennifer Bartlett before settling in Britain in 1966. His 1973 work An Oak Tree — a glass of water on a shelf declared by an accompanying text to be an oak tree — became a landmark of British conceptualism, testing language, belief, and institutional authority in determining what an artwork is. He taught at Goldsmiths from the 1970s, mentoring artists including Damien Hirst and Gary Hume. An emeritus professor at Goldsmiths, he was appointed CBE in 2001 and knighted in 2016.