Katherine Gili

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b.1948, Oxford
Lives and works in Kent, England

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Katherine Gili graduated from Bath Academy of Art in 1970 then spent a year juggling earning a living with making sculpture in London. Having written to and then met with Anthony Caro she went on to study at St Martin’s School of Art on his recommendation. In 1973 she set up a studio at Stockwell Depot alongside a group of like-minded artists. The group established a reputation with a series of annual exhibitions throughout the decade, during which Gili’s work received considerable attention. So much so that sculptures from this period were purchased by the Arts Council at the time and later by the Tate. This also led to a solo exhibition in New York with several of Gili’s sculptures from this period now in private collections in the USA. In 1978 she moved to the Greenwich Studios and began to radically develop her work, which in turn led to exhibitions at Tate Gallery in 1984 and the Conde Duque Centre in Madrid in1988.

Katherine Gili’s sculpture has been exhibited in both solo and group shows well over a hundred times and her career is marked by contributions to seminal survey exhibitions at major venues such as the Hayward Gallery (three times) and the Henry Moore Institute. She has regularly shown in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions, in 2013 her sculpture “Ripoll” won the Sculpture Prize.
 

Gili taught part-time at several art schools, most notably St Martins and Norwich and served as a selector for exhibitions such as “New Contemporaries 1978”, “Serpentine Summer Show 1979” and “Have You Seen Sculpture from the Body?” at Tate Gallery in 1984. She scaled back these commitments on moving to Kent in 1995.
 

Gili’s work is represented in public and corporate collections in the UK, Switzerland, and the USA. Lord Foster selected one of her pieces to stand alongside the Cranfield University Institute of Technology Library in 1992. Her sculptures can also be found in many private collections in Britain, Spain, and the USA.

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Exhibitions:

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Looking for the Physical, Sculpture and Drawings by Katherine Gili, Felix & Spear, London 2016 (catalogue)

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Discovered in the Making, Katherine Gili Sculpture, Felix & Spear, London 2018 (catalogue)

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Sparks Fly, Katherine Gili Sculpture 1974 to 2018, 14 Jan - 1 Mar 2019, Canary Wharf, London (catalogue)

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Another Look - Sculptures from the 1980s by Katherine Gili, 15 Aug - 27 Sep 2020, Felix & Spear, London (press release and catalogue)

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Encounters and Connections: Recent sculptures by Katherine Gili, 16 Sep - 23 Oct 2022, Felix & Spear, London (press release)

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Katherine Gili: Out of Step (1976), 10 June - 16 July 2023, Felix & Spear, London (press release)