George Condo

George Condo (American, b. 1957) is a contemporary artist whose practice is connected to Blue-Chip Expressionist Figurative. The work focuses primarily on painting.

Renowned for his grotesque nudes and warped portraits, George Condo is one of America’s most influential living artists. With a career spanning more than 40 years, his work pays tribute to an array of art-historical genres, including Old Master portraiture and Pop Art, while engaging with issues and ideas in American contemporary culture. “I describe what I do as psychological Cubism,” says the artist, whose cast of characters and deconstructed faces combine figuration and abstraction.

Born in 1957, Condo grew up in Concord, New Hampshire. Studying art history and music theory at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, he dropped out after two years to join a band called The Girls. This led him to cross paths with the street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, who encouraged him to pursue his artistic career and move to New York. Between 1981 and 1983, Condo worked in Andy Warhol’s studio, ‘The Factory’, applying gold to the pop artist’s ‘Myths’ series, with his first public exhibitions held in the galleries of the East Village.

With a broad body of work that has shocked and delighted throughout his long and prosperous career, Condo has exhibited in the world’s finest art institutions, including the Musée Maillol in Paris and the Guggenheim in New York. His exhibition activity in the past decade has been particularly impressive, with more than 80 solo shows and close to 400 group exhibitions.