Andy Goldsworthy (born 25 July 1956) is an English sculptor, photographer, and environmentalist who produces site-specific sculptures and land art situated in natural or urban settings.
Early life
Goldsworthy was born in Cheshire on 25 July 1956, the son of Muriel (née Stanger) and Frederick Allin Goldsworthy (1929–2001), a former professor of applied mathematics at the University of Leeds. He grew up on the Harrogate side of Leeds. From the age of 13, he worked on farms as a labourer. He has likened the repetitive quality of farm tasks to the routine of making sculpture: "A lot of my work is like picking potatoes; you have to get into the rhythm of it."
He attended Harrogate Secondary Modern and Harrogate High schools. then from 1975–1978 at Preston Polytechnic, now the University of Central Lancashire,
In 1993, Goldsworthy received an honorary degree from the University of Bradford. He was an A.D. White Professor-At-Large in Sculpture at Cornell University 2000–2006 and 2006–2008.
In 2003, Goldsworthy produced a commissioned work for the entry courtyard of San Francisco's de Young Museum called "Drawn Stone", which echoes San Francisco's frequent earthquakes and their effects. His installation included a giant crack in the pavement that broke off into smaller cracks, and broken limestone, which could be used for benches. The smaller cracks were made with a hammer, adding unpredictability to the work as he created it.
In 2025, Goldsworthy held a major show in the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh to mark 50 years of him being an artist. When approached by the National Galleries of Scotland about doing a show, they expected Goldsworthy to focus on one of their outdoor spaces, instead he asked to have the use of the prominent city-centre gallery. The show featured a range of installations and photographs in the upper level of the gallery, plus a selection of earlier works including sketchbooks and videos in the lower levels.
Art process
thumb|Bail Hill Striding Arch, one of four arches built by Goldsworthy in this area of Scotland
The materials used in Goldsworthy's art often include brightly coloured flowers, icicles, leaves, mud, pinecones, snow, stone, twigs, and thorns. He has been quoted as saying, "I think it's incredibly brave to be working with flowers and leaves and petals. But I have to: I can't edit the materials I work with. My remit is to work with nature as a whole."
Rather than interfering in natural processes, his work magnifies existing ones through deliberately minimal intervention in the landscape. Goldsworthy has said "I am reluctant to carve into or break off solid living rock...I feel a difference between large, deep rooted stones and the debris lying at the foot of a cliff, pebbles on a beach...These are loose and unsettled, as if on a journey, and I can work with them in ways I couldn't with a long resting stone." Goldsworthy's commitment to working with available natural materials injects an inherent scarcity and contingency into the work.
In contrast to other artists who work with the land, most of Goldsworthy's works are small in scale and temporary in their installation.
For his permanent sculptures like "Roof", "Stone River" and "Three Cairns", "Moonlit Path" (Petworth, West Sussex, 2002) and "Chalk Stones" in the South Downs, near West Dean, West Sussex he has employed the use of machine tools. To create "Roof", Goldsworthy worked with his assistant and five British dry-stone wallers, who were used to make sure the structure could withstand time and nature.
Goldsworthy is generally considered the founder of modern rock balancing.
Photography
Photography plays a crucial role in his art due to its often ephemeral and transient state. Photographs (made primarily by Goldsworthy himself) of site-specific, environmental works allow them to be shared without severing important ties to place. According to Goldsworthy, "Each work grows, stays, decays – integral parts of a cycle which the photograph shows at its heights, marking the moment when the work is most alive. There is an intensity about a work at its peak that I hope is expressed in the image. Process and decay are implicit."
Photography aids Goldsworthy in understanding his works, as much as in communicating them to an audience. He has said, "Photography is my way of talking, writing and thinking about my art. It makes me aware of connections and developments that might have not otherwise have been apparent. It is the visual evidence which runs through my art as a whole and gives me a broader, more distant view of what I am doing." In 2018, Riedelsheimer released a second documentary on Goldsworthy titled Leaning Into the Wind.
Personal life
In 1982, Goldsworthy married Judith Gregson; they had four children together before separating. Judith later died in 2008.
|Ithaca, New York, USA
|- valign=top
|align=center|x100px
|align=center|1996–2003
|Sheepfolds
|Cumbria, England, UK
|- valign=top
|align=center|x100px
|align=center|1997
|Stone House
|Herring Island, Victoria, Australia
|- valign=top
|align=center|x100px
|align=center|1997
|Cairn<br />(featuring the installation Storm King Wall)
|Storm King Art Center<br />
Mountainville, Cornwall, New York, USA
|- valign=top
|align=center|thumb
|align=center|August 2001
|Stone River
|Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University<br />
Stanford, California, USA
|- valign=top
|align=center|
|align=center|2002
|Andy Goldsworthy Arch at Goodwood
|Cass Sculpture Foundation<br />
Goodwood, West Sussex, England, UK
|- valign=top
|align=center|x100px
|align=center|2002
| Chalk Stones Trail
| South Downs near West Dean, West Sussex
|- valign=top
|align=center|
|align=center|2002
|Three Cairns
|Des Moines Art Center<br />
Des Moines, IA USA
|- valign=top
|align=center|
|align=center|4 May –<br />31 October 2004
|Andy Goldsworthy on the Roof
(featuring the installation Stone Houses)
|Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Metropolitan Museum of Art Roof Garden<br />
New York City, USA
|- valign=top
|align=center|
|align=center|2005
|Andy Goldsworthy: Early Works<br />
A national touring exhibition from the Haywood Gallery
|England, United Kingdom
|- valign=top
|align=center|
|align=center|2005
|Drawn Stone
|M. H. de Young Memorial Museum<br />
San Francisco
|-
|align=center|
|align=center|2005
|Arches
|Gibbs Farm<br />New Zealand
|- valign=top
|align=center|
|align=center|22 January –<br />15 May 2005
|The Andy Goldsworthy Project<br />
(including the installation Roof)
|National Gallery of Art<br />
National Mall, Washington, D.C., USA
|- valign=top
|align=center|
|align=center|2006
|Red sandstone wall at the Doerr-Hosier Center
|Aspen Institute<br />
Aspen, Colorado, USA
|- valign=top
|align=center|x100px
|align=center|31 March 2007 –<br />6 January 2008
|Hanging Trees
|Yorkshire Sculpture Park<br />
West Bretton, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, UK
|- valign=top
|align=center|
|align=center|2007 – 2008
|Clay Houses (Boulder-Room-Holes)
|Glenstone<br />
Potomac, Maryland, USA
|- valign=top
|align=center|
|align=center|October 2008
|Spire
|Park Presidio<br />San Francisco
|- valign=top
|align=center|
|align=center|June 2009
|Refuge d'Art Hiking Trail, Provence, France
|Provence<br />France
|- valign=top
|align=center|100px
|align=center|2010-11
|Wood Line
|Park Presidio<br />San Francisco
|- valign=top
|align=center|100px
|align=center|7 September 2012 –<br />2 November 2012
|Domo de Argila / Clay Dome
|Cais do Porto<br />
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
|- valign=top
|align=center|
|align=center|2013
|Tree Fall
|Park Presidio<br />San Francisco
|- valign=top
|align=center|
|align=center|2014
|Earth Wall
|Park Presidio<br />San Francisco
|- valign=top
|align=center|
|align=center|2019
|Walking Wall
|Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art<br />Missouri
|- valign="top"
| align="center" |
| align="center" |26 July –
2 November 2025
|Andy Goldsworthy Fifty Years
|Dalveen, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, UK
|}
Publications
<!--Please arrange in chronological order.-->
- Republished as
See also
- Environmental art
- Environmental sculpture
- Greenmuseum.org
- Land art
- Rock balancing
References
Further information
Articles:
- Mead, Rebecca. "A Landscape Artist in Winter". The New Yorker profile, February 9, 2026
- SPARK Educator Guide . Andy Goldsworthy at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. (Visual Arts: earthworks). (2005).
Books:
Film/Documentary
- Rivers and Tides (2001) documentary by Thomas Riedelsheimer
- Leaning into the Wind (2017) documentary by Thomas Riedelsheimer ()
External links
General:
- Andy Goldsworthy at the Cass Sculpture Foundation
- Andy Goldsworthy's 1980s work with Common Ground, a UK charity and lobby group promoting local distinctiveness
- Andy Goldsworthy working on Drawn Stone on KQED's TV programme Spark (June 2005)
- Andy Goldsworthy on Artcyclopedia
- Biography of Andy Goldsworthy at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Art:
<!--Please arrange chronologically, if possible.-->
- Online preview of the Andy Goldsworthy Digital Catalogue DVD Volume 1: 1976–1986. A collaborative effort involving Goldsworthy, The Crichton Foundation, and the University of Glasgow's Crichton Campus and Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII). The DVD documents, visually and textually, the first ten years of Goldsworthy's ephemeral outdoor practice. It replicates Goldsworthy's "Slide Cabinet Index", and includes previously unpublished material from "Goldsworthy's Sketchbook Diaries".
- "Wet feathers/Wrapped around a stone/Before the incoming tide, Carrick" (1999). Photograph from the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
- "Three Cairns" (2002), Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa, US.
- Photographs by Andy Goldsworthy in the UK Government Art Collection.
- Andy Goldsworthy's Portfolio at the Cass Sculpture Foundation
- SaveLandArt.org – Media Initiatives to Protect Land Art from Urbanization, Industry and Overcuration.