A contemporary of Antony Gormley, Richard Deacon and Tony Cragg, Nicholas Pope has long been celebrated for his imaginative and experimental work. Soon after Pope graduated in 1973, he began gaining recognition for his large-scale sculptures made of wood, stone, sheet lead or chalk. As he began to exhibit around the world, Pope’s work entered major international collections such as the Tate, Guggenheim and Kröller-Müller, and in 1980, he represented Britain and the Venice Biennale.
In the early 1980s Pope travelled to Tanzania to learn from the Makonde sculptors in the Ruvuma Valley, where he contracted viral encephalitis, known to cause severe inflammation of the brain followed later by Parkinson’s disease. The debilitating effects of his illness forced him to spend a sustained period of time in recuperation, and for a number of years, the artist stopped working altogether. After a move from Hampshire to Much Marcle in Herefordshire and a nearly decade-long hiatus, he finally found himself re-emerging. During this time Pope became increasingly interested in creating works that somehow expressed a complex moral dimension, and the notion of belief became a recurring theme throughout his practice. His exhibition ‘Nicholas Pope: The Apostles Speaking in Tongues’ (Tate Britain, 1996) marked his return to the public eye.
Richard Deacon has said of Pope’s unusual career trajectory: “It is true that reputation can rest on exposure and that Nick has been underexposed but, to me, he has never gone away, a wonderful talent that is always around when I am thinking about making sculpture.”
Selected exhibitions include Portraits of a Marriage, Holburne Museum, Bath, 2021; With us in Nature, Kröller-Müller Museum, Netherlands 2019; Sins & Virtues, The Sunday Painter, London, 2018; Sticky Intimacy, Chapter, Cardiff, UK, 2016; Baldock Pope Zahle, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland, UK, 2016; Nicholas Pope: The Apostles Speaking in Tongues, (In collaboration with New Art Centre) Salisbury Cathedral, Salisbury, UK, 2014; Richard Saltoun Gallery, London, 2014; New Art Centre, Roche Court Sculpture Park, Salisbury, UK, 2013; The Ten Commandments in Flowing Light, Art & Project, Slootdorp, The Netherlands, 2001; Art Now: Nicholas Pope: The Apostles Speaking in Tongues, Tate Gallery, London, UK, 1996; W Art & Project, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1992; Waddington Galleries, London, UK, 1986; Nicholas Pope: Wax Drawings and Sculpture, John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK, 1982; Rijksmuseum Kröller- Müller, Otterlo, The Netherlands, 1981; British Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 1980; Summer Show 3, Serpentine Gallery, London, UK, 1976; Arts Council Collection, Hayward Gallery, London, UK, 1976; The Condition of Sculpture, Hayward Gallery, London, UK, 1975.