Art practice
After many years teaching, writing and curating contemporary art, I returned to art making via the one-year programme at the Royal Drawing School. Since 2007, I have combined drawing, painting, photography, collage and object-making with curatorial and writing projects. Subject matter initially derived from a focus upon landscape as a mental and material cartography of the forms, patterns and textures of the natural world, particularly mountains, rocks, trees, water and notions of ‘deep time’ embedded in extra-terrestrial objects: meteors and asteroids. Currently architectural references predominate, specifically the house that the philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein designed for his sister in Vienna in the inter-war period. Drawing has always been my primary expressive medium: charcoal, graphite, pen and inks, collage, on a variety of surfaces; paintings are oil on canvas.
Jon Bird lives and works in London.
Education/Teaching
Graduated in Sculpture, Central School of Art & Design (1967); MA Sculpture, Chelsea School of Art (1968); PhD research, University College, London (1975-78); Royal Drawing School, London (2006-07).
Taught at Middlesex University, London (1982-2017), Emeritus Professor of Art and Critical Theory; Royal College of Art, London (1993-99); Jan van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht (1997-2001).
Selected exhibitions (since 2007)
| 2026 | Haus Wittgenstein… Jon Bird and Ergin Çavuşoğlu, Wittgenstein House, Vienna. |
| 2024 | Haus Wittgenstein: Jon Bird Wittgenstein’s Ladder, Ergin Çavuşoğlu The View from Above, Danielle Arnaud Gallery, London and (2025) Venice. |
| 2021-24 | Royal Academy Summer Exhibition |
| 2021 | The Drawing Biennial, The Drawing Room, London |
| 2020 | Royal Academy Summer/Winter Exhibition |
| 2019 | ‘Art on a Postcard’, WeWork, London |
| Royal Academy Summer Exhibition | |
| The Drawing Works, London Art Fair | |
| 2018 | The Drawing Works, London Art Fair |
| 2016 | ‘Land-Marks’, Ply Gallery, Hornsey Town Hall, London (solo) |
| ‘The Drawing Works’, Camden Image Gallery, London (group) | |
| 2013 | Sideshow Gallery, Williamsburg, New York (solo) |
| 2011 | ‘Refractions’, Sideshow Gallery, Williamsburg, New York (2-person) |
| 2010 | ‘Water’, C2 Gallery, Milton Keynes (group) |
| 2007 | Royal Drawing School/Tea Building, London (group) |
