The acclaimed artist comes to the Royal College of Art after a spectacular career at the forefront of the British art scene. Previously Master of the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford University, Professor Wentworth succeeds Professor Glynn Williams who retired in July, following almost two decades at the helm of the Department.

An outstanding artist and educator, Richard Wentworth attended Hornsey College of Art from 1965 and in 1967 worked with Henry Moore as an assistant while he was a student. In 1970 he was awarded an MA from the Royal College of Art, going on to teach at Goldsmith's College, University of London from 1971 to 1987.

From his involvement with, and shaping of, the YBAs in the late 1980s, through to his work with the Architectural Association in the 1990s, and latterly through his recent work at the Ruskin, Richard Wentworth has played a hugely influential role in contemporary British art.

As both sculptor and as one of its most gifted teachers, Wentworth has radically transforming the way we think about sculpture along the way. In parallel there has been his on-going project, Making Do and Getting By, in which the artist has been documenting aspects of everyday life since the 1970s.

In 2002, an Artangel commission resulted in his taking over of a disused warehouse in Kings Cross, where Wentworth lives with his family. In An Area of Outstanding Unnatural Beauty, he encouraged visitors to explore the locale; the project prompted by the ways in which the district’s inhabitants negotiated its urban geography.

In 2005 Tate Liverpool put on the largest and most comprehensive exhibition to date devoted to Richard Wentworth’s work, where his ongoing fascination with everyday life was showcased. The exhibition included work from the last thirty years as well as new work made especially for Tate Liverpool.

Richard Wentworth’s work can currently be seen at the 53rd Venice Biennale, and he also exhibited at the 2009 Biennale Montreal in May. He is represented by the Lisson Gallery, London, where he recently curated the group exhibition Boule to Braid.