Nigel Hall is one of Britain's most distinguished sculptors. His outside works, principally made of corten steel, painted steel or bronze, are concerned with three-dimensional space, mass and line. His abstract and geometric sculptures give as much prominence to voids and shadows as to the solidity of material and each work changes with light and viewpoint reflecting the landscapes that inspired them.
Nigel was born and schooled in Bristol and grew up in the Gloucestershire countryside. He studied at West of England College of Art 1960-64 and went on to the Royal College of Art 1964-67. A Harkness Fellowship in 1967 took him to United States for two years, choosing California as his base to experience both the city of Los Angeles and the Mojave Desert.
From 1971 to 1981 Nigel was a lecturer and external examiner of the Royal College of Art, London, and ran the MA sculpture course at Chelsea College of Art and Design. In 1995 he won the Pollock- Krasner Award and in 2001 he had a residency at Chretzeturm, Stein Am Rhein, Switzerland. In 2002 Nigel was awarded the Jack Goldhill Sculpture Prize and a year later he was elected a Royal Academician. In 2017 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from University of the Arts, London.
Nigel had his first solo show in 1967 at Galerie Givaudan Paris. Since then he has had over 100 solo and over 300 group exhibitions around the world. Major solo exhibitions include the Kunsthalle Mannheim 2004, a major retrospective at Yorkshire Sculpture Park 2008 and at The Royal Academy, London 2011. In 2020 he exhibited in South Korea at Mo J Gallery and in 2021 he had a solo show at Annely Juda Fine Art Gallery in London.
Nigel is well represented in numerous public collections in USA, Asia, Australia and Europe including the Tate Gallery, London, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art. Corporate collections include British Airways, IBM, Goldman Sachs, Mercedes-Benz, Quantas Airlines, London Docklands and Unilever.
Nigel has undertaken many private and public large-scale site-specific commissions. Since his first site specific sculpture in 1982 for the entrance to Australian National Gallery, Canberra a piece 7.3 meters wide in painted aluminium there have been over 25 site specific projects. In 2018 he was commissioned to make a wall mounted bronze for a private collection in Mannheim, Germany (200 x 300cm), in 2015 a free standing sculpture in painted steel for Kensington Leisure Centre, London (500 x 354 x 71cm) and the largest to date being a free standing steel sculpture for the entrance to Thameslink Road Tunnel, London Docklands (914 x 838 x 305cm). He is currently working on a 4m high corten piece for the University of Iowa, a free standing bronze for a client in Switzerland and a wall mounted bronze for a UK client.
Nigel lives and works in London . His current studio, a 60 feet by 60 feet converted church hall in Balham has been his artistic base since 1991. The high ceiling and added skylights enabling Nigel to make and store some of his large sculptures.
Wherever possible, he develops his ideas in drawings and sculptures from concept to finished work. This means that his sculptures are nearly always unique, although a favoured piece may be worked through various iterations.