Artists

Richard Hawkins

Press release

The paintings, collage and sculpture of Richard Hawkins draw on the histories of art, literature and popular culture, locating biographical details, anecdotes or obsessive subcultures. Since the early 2000s his work has adopted an eclectic mix of subjects from Greek and Roman sculpture to steampunk; quoting from the paintings of Otto Dix, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Pierre Bonnard and Francis Bacon, or paying homage to figures such as the Japanese choreographer Tatsumi or the artist Forrest Bess to consider the subject of desire. The exhibition at Kunsthalle Wien will be the largest presentation of his work in over a decade, presenting new works within a selection from the last twenty years. It will be accompanied by a new monographic publication.

Biography

Richard Hawkins (b. 1961 in Mexia, Texas) has held solo exhibitions at Tate Liverpool (2014); Le Consortium, Dijon (2013), the Art Institute of Chicago and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (both 2010); De Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam (2007) and Kunstverein Heilbronn (2003).

His work has also been presented within group surveys at Artists Space, New York (2023); Bonner Kunstverein (2019); Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam (2014) and the 2012 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Hawkins’ work is held in numerous public collections including the Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; The Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Tate, London and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

In 2024 his work was the inspiration for the designer J.W. Anderson’s Fall/Winter menswear collection for Loewe. Hawkins lives and works in Los Angeles where he is a Professor of Painting & Drawing at the University of California, Los Angeles.