Robert Wilson
1996 Recipient
Robert Wilson “represents not only a vital American sensibility but one of the supreme theatrical imaginations of our time,” wrote Robert Marx in Opera News, Indeed, the artist, designer, director and author has been acclaimed for his brilliant conceptions and unusual integration of artistic media, combining movement, dance, painting, lighting, furniture design, sculpture, music and text into a unified whole in imagery that is both aesthetically striking and emotionally charged.
Born Oct. 4, 1941, in Waco, Texas, Wilson was educated at the University of Texas, Austin, and at the Pratt Institute in New York City, where he received a B.F.A. in 1966. He studied painting with George McNeil in Paris, and later worked with the architect Paolo Solari in Arizona. Today, his drawings, paintings and sculptures are part of the permanent collections of museums around the world, including the Centre Pompidou, Paris, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Museum of Fine arts, Boston, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and numerous others.
Robert Wilson emerged as a leader of America’s theatrical avant-garde in the 1970s, having gained attention with his landmark, seven-hour production, Deafman Glance, inspired by a deaf-mute child whom he had adopted. Subsequent projects have included the 12-hour The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin, the legendary, Oliver award winning opera Einstein on the Beach with composer Philip Glass, two versions of Death Destruction & Detroit, and the nine-hour, epic international project “the design is the thing—architectural structure, spatial arrangement, physical gesture cum choreography, line, costume, décor, lights—above all, the lights.”
Since 1985, Wilson’s vision has come to include grand opera and adaptations of other playwrights’ works. He has staged and designed many traditional European operas in both Europe and the United States, in addition to presenting innovative adaptations of plays by writers such as Marguerite Duras, Gertrude Stein, Henrik Ibsen and others. His recent works include a solo version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the operas Bluebeard’s Castle (Bartok) and Erwartung (Schoenberg), and a dance piece commissioned by the Martha Graham Company.
In 1992, Wilson established the Watermill Center on Long Island as an international, multi-disciplinary institute for the creation and development of new work in theater, music, film, dance and the visual arts.
