Gilbert & George Biography

Gilbert & George consider themselves warriors “fighting for a total expression.” They seek to invoke the full range of human experience, intellectual and physical, embracing the dramatic, the banal, and even what social custom seeks to suppress. Their daily struggle for artistic creation becomes a metaphor for the restless activity of modern life. – Mario Codognato

Gilbert & George are a British artist duo who have worked together since the late 1960s. Gilbert Proesch and George Passmore met while studying at St. Martin’s School of Art in London and soon developed a collaborative practice that treats art and life as inseparable. Their provocative artworks frequently challenge social conventions while addressing themes of identity, morality, belief, sexuality, and national identity.

One of their earliest and most influential works is The Singing Sculpture (1969), a performance in which the artists, dressed in formal suits, stood on a table and sang the music hall song Underneath the Arches while moving in a mechanical rhythm. This piece blurred the boundaries between sculpture, performance, and everyday life, establishing the duo’s lifelong commitment to presenting themselves as “living sculptures.”

During the 1970s, Gilbert & George developed their celebrated photographic works arranged in large grid structures. These compositions, often referred to as their iconic grid pictures, combine photography, text, and intense color to create monumental artworks that confront themes of religion, sexuality, politics, and urban life.

Series such as the Drinking Pieces introduced provocative imagery of the artists themselves, confronting taboos surrounding alcohol, sexuality, and social behavior while simultaneously critiquing conservative British culture. Later bodies of work expanded this visual language into complex photographic panels filled with symbols, religious references, fragments of everyday life, and imagery drawn from the streets of London.

Gilbert & George prints and editions translate these grid pictures into collectible artworks, extending their distinctive visual language beyond the exhibition space. Through these signed limited edition prints, the artists’ combination of photography, text, and bold color remains accessible to collectors while preserving the conceptual rigor that defines their practice.

Auction record: £1.9m, Christie’s, London, 2008

Notable exhibitions

Gilbert & George represented the United Kingdom at the Venice Biennale in 2005, presenting Ginkgo Pictures at the British Pavilion, a pivotal moment in their international reception. In 2007, Tate Modern organized a major retrospective of their artworks, later touring to institutions including Haus der Kunst in Munich, Castello di Rivoli in Turin, the de Young Museum in San Francisco, and the Brooklyn Museum, consolidating their position within the postwar canon.

This institutional recognition continued with The Great Exhibition (1971–2016), a comprehensive survey shown at venues such as Moderna Museet, the Astrup Fearnley Museum in Oslo, and Kunsthalle Zürich between 2019 and 2020. More recently, their ongoing London Pictures cycle and subsequent bodies of work were presented at The Gilbert & George Centre and the Hayward Gallery in 2024 and 2025, reaffirming their sustained engagement with public institutions. Gilbert & George prints and limited editions continue to circulate widely among collectors and institutions.