Gary Hume

Gary Hume opens the door to success with Doors

Gary Hume was born Gary Stewart Hume on 9 May 1962 in Tenterden, Kent. After attending Homewood School, he graduated from Goldsmiths College (Goldsmiths, University of London) in 1988. That same year, his works were shown in the exhibition Freeze, orchestrated by his fellow student Damien Hirst (b. 1965), and two years later he took part in the East Country Yard Show, organised by the young English artists Henry Bond (b. 1966) and Sarah Lucas (b. 1962) in a warehouse. Gary Hume made his breakthrough in the early 1990s with his Doors series, the pictures of which reproduced hospital doors in their actual size in high-gloss industrial colours. These works met with international critical acclaim and attracted the attention of the major art collector Charles Saatchi (b. 1943), who included Gary Hume's paintings in his travelling exhibition Sensation in 1997. Two years earlier, Hume had taken part in the group exhibition Brilliant! at the Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis, USA, as part of the Young British Artists.

Appropriated motifs in reduced forms and colours

In the mid-1990s, Gary Hume moved away from his door paintings and turned to a new format. Using household gloss paint, he painted pictures on aluminium panels, which he often appropriated from existing templates - for example a portrait of the English DJ and presenter Tony Blackburn (b. 1943), but also animal motifs, and he also often drew his motifs from personal memory. These works were of drastically reduced form and colour, for example depicting people with only two or three shades of colour. The painting Snowman from 1996, shows only a smaller circle in front of a larger circle and suffices with three shades of red. The initially bright colours later gave way to muted tones. In 1999, Gary Hume represented his country at the Biennale di Venezia, and the Whitechapel Gallery in London dedicated a solo exhibition to him that same year. In 2005, Hume returned to his doors, now depicted in a humanised form with personal features: as lovers who could also argue, for example.

Hume’s pictures bring record results at auctions

Gary Hume celebrated one of his greatest successes with the painting Yellow Window, which realised more than double its estimate at a Christie’s auction to sell for £25,000 As a result, he later produced a limited edition entitled 1000 Windows for London's Tate Modern in 2013. Hume runs two studios, in London and in the Catskill Mountains near New York. Gary Hume has received prizes and awards for his art, including the Jerwood Painting Prize in 1997. The previous year, Hume was nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize, but was beaten by the Scottish artist Douglas Gordon (b. 1966). Gary Hume was admitted to the Royal Academy of Arts in 2001.

Gary Hume lives and works in London and Accord, New York.