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Anish Kapoor

Living · British (born in India) · born 1954 · works in London

Anish Kapoor

Anish Kapoor on stage at the Nobel Week Dialogue, Gothenburg, 9 December 2017, wearing a headset microphone while being interviewed about a virtual-reality work.

Photograph by Vogler, CC BY-SA 4.0
Anish Kapoor
Full nameAnish Mikhail Kapoor
Works asSculptor, Painter
Works inLondon, United Kingdom
Represented byLisson Gallery, London; Gladstone Gallery, New York; Regen Projects, Los Angeles; Galleria Continua, San Gimignano
Nationality British (born in India)
Sources105 cited
Last verified

About this page Last verified · 105 sources cited

On this page 15 sections
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Kapoor's work is the rare case of a sculptor whose most famous objects are owned by cities and theatres rather than collectors, and whose own copyright in them is a separate asset: Cloud Gate belongs to the City of Chicago, which commissioned it, while Kapoor's 2018 complaint against the National Rifle Association states that he registered the copyright with the US Copyright Office in January 2016; Artnet reported that the case was settled in December 2018. The same separation runs through the whole practice. The Sky Mirror is a series, not a work: the 2001 Nottingham dish (575 cm), the Sky Mirror of 2013 shown at Versailles, a 260 cm mirror of 2014 offered at Phillips in 2020, a Sky Mirror of 2015 (259 by 300 by 132 cm) on Lisson's list and the rectangular Sky Mirror (for Hendrik) of 2017 at Tilburg are different objects under one title, and Phillips lists further public showings at Rockefeller Center in 2006, the Hermitage in 2010 and Kensington Gardens in 2010-11. A buyer reads the dimensions, the date and the fabricator before the name.

Anish Mikhail Kapoor was born in Bombay on 12 March 1954, went to London to study at Hornsey College of Art (1973-77) and Chelsea School of Art (1977-78) and had his first solo exhibition in 1980 at Patrice Alexandre in Paris. His first show at Lisson Gallery followed in May 1982, and Lisson has represented him ever since. He represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1990, won the Turner Prize in 1991, filled the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern with Marsyas in 2002 and in 2009 was given the whole of the Royal Academy's main galleries. He was appointed CBE in 2003 and Knight Bachelor in the 2013 Birthday Honours, 'Sculptor. For services to Visual Arts.' The studio's own biography now says he lives and works in London and Venice.

The permanent public works are the part of the record that can be photographed and checked: Sky Mirror at Nottingham Playhouse (2001), Cloud Gate in Chicago's Millennium Park (2004-06), Temenos at Middlesbrough (2010), the ArcelorMittal Orbit in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (2012), Sky Mirror (for Hendrik) at De Pont in Tilburg (2017) and, since 2025, the two entrances of the Monte Sant'Angelo metro station in Naples. Behind them stands a studio that employs technicians, fabricators and stone carvers and that, by Kapoor's own account in 2023, releases about a tenth of what it makes each year.

What is hard to find, and what this page records, is the paper: which body owns each public work and under what terms; that Kapoor's reproduction rights are administered by DACS in Britain, ARS in the United States and VG Bild-Kunst in Germany; that his foundation is an English charity incorporated on 15 June 2017 which is converting a Venetian palazzo into its headquarters; that the studio is, as of 2026, publicly asking owners of works dated 1970 to 1990 to come forward so that their provenance can be researched; and what the auction record actually consists of, hammer and premium separated where the house separates them.

The reading

Museum track Museum retrospectives and major prizes (holdings in ten or more museums, or a retrospective, or a major prize; read off the signals below on every update, never set by hand)

The record shows an artist whose institutional standing was settled by 1991 and has not moved since, whose public commissions are owned by cities, theatres and museums with the copyright retained by the artist and whose secondary market is narrow at the top and wide at the base: one alabaster at GBP 1.95 million in 2008, the same class of object at GBP 483,000 in 2025, wall mirrors at half a million, prints from a few thousand. The signals that matter now are the ones in the paperwork rather than the saleroom: the foundation of 2017 and its palazzo, the warehouse of unreleased work and the studio's 2026 call for the provenance of everything made before 1990. What would change the reading is a published register or catalogue from that research, or a statement on certificates; until then, for a work leaving the studio, the gallery invoice is the document, and for an early work, the studio's own confirmation is the only one that counts.

The signals

The evidence the reading is written from: 66 dated facts, each with its source, by kind (institutional 23, biennales and surveys 4, recognition 8, representation 5, market 10, literature 7, practice 8, public attention 1). A signal is something that happened and can be checked: a museum bought a work, a prize was given, a show opened, a lot sold. Nothing here is a prediction.

Show the 66 signals
Dated, sourced signals for Anish Kapoor
SignalDateWhat is recordedSource
Institutional2026Tate, London: 49 works in the collection, including Ishi's Light (2003).33
Institutional2025Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo: Part of the Red (1981), lent to the Jewish Museum, New York.42
Institutional2017De Pont Museum, Tilburg: Sky Mirror (for Hendrik), 2017.AK.11; the museum has shown and collected Kapoor since the early 1990s and relates the mirror to its Vertigo (2008).16
Institutional2009Guggenheim Museum Bilbao: Tall Tree & The Eye (2009), on view by the pond.43
Institutional2009MAK, Vienna: Shooting into the Corner (2008-09), lent to the Royal Academy.37
Institutional2002Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (as named in Tate's press release).35
Institutional2025National Gallery of Art, Washington, and Fondazione Prada, Milan (as named in Bonhams' catalogue note).94
Institutional27 Apr 2001Sky Mirror, Nottingham Playhouse, GBP 921,000 National Lottery grant; permanent.13
Institutional2004Cloud Gate, Millennium Park, Chicago, owned by the City of Chicago.44
Institutional10 Jun 2010Temenos, Middlesbrough, GBP 2.7 million, Tees Valley Regeneration.7
InstitutionalMay 2012ArcelorMittal Orbit, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London, commissioned by the Greater London Authority as a permanent tower.81
Institutional2017Sky Mirror (for Hendrik), De Pont, Tilburg, for the museum's 25th anniversary.16
Institutional2025Monte Sant'Angelo metro station entrances, Naples, weathering steel and aluminium.83
Institutional30 Apr 1998Hayward Gallery, London, his first major UK survey in the Southbank Centre's words, 30 April to 14 June 1998.52
Institutional9 Oct 2002The Unilever Series: Marsyas, Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, to 6 April 2003.34
Institutional26 Sep 2009Royal Academy of Arts, main galleries, a survey of the career to date, to 11 December 2009.37
Institutional11 May 2011Monumenta 2011: Leviathan, Grand Palais, Paris, to 23 June.60
Institutional9 Jun 2015Kapoor Versailles, Chateau de Versailles, to 1 November 2015.104
Institutional7 Oct 2023Untrue Unreal, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, to 4 February 2024, curated by Arturo Galansino.41
Institutional7 Oct 2023The studio lists Dark Brutal, Void Pavilion VII and Angel among the Strozzi works.75
Institutional24 Oct 2025Early Works, the Jewish Museum, New York, to 1 February 2026, some 55 works.42
Institutional25 Apr 2026Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, extended to 18 October 2026.39
Institutional16 Jun 2026Hayward Gallery, London, to 18 October 2026, curated by Ralph Rugoff.38
Biennales and surveys27 May 1990Venice Biennale, British Pavilion, 27 May to 30 September 1990; Premio Duemila.50
Biennales and surveys1992documenta 9, Kassel.45
Biennales and surveys12 Dec 2014Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Descension, 12 December 2014 to 29 March 2015.66
Biennales and surveys29 Oct 2020Bangkok Art Biennale, 29 October 2020 to 30 April 2021, Push Pull II and Sky Mirror.73
Recognition1990Premio Duemila, Venice Biennale, for the British Pavilion.45
Recognition1991Turner Prize; shortlist Ian Davenport, Fiona Rae, Rachel Whiteread.36
Recognition2003Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).45
Recognition2011Praemium Imperiale, Sculpture, the 23rd Praemium Imperiale of the Japan Art Association.45
Recognition2012Padma Bhushan, Government of India, 'Art - Sculpture - UK', as a tertiary reproduction of the official list records it.48
Recognition2013Knight Bachelor, Birthday Honours 2013, 'Sculptor. For services to Visual Arts.'46
Recognition2017Genesis Prize, USD 1 million, which the Genesis Prize Foundation announced in January 2018 he had directed to five refugee NGOs.47
Recognition2025Wilhelm Lehmbruck Prize of the City of Duisburg and the Rhineland Regional Council.40
Representation19 May 1982Lisson Gallery, London (also New York, Shanghai, Beijing), since the show of 19 May to 12 June 1982; a named supporter of the 2026 Hayward show.49
Representation3 Mar 1984Barbara Gladstone / Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels, from the show of 3 to 31 March 1984.87
Representation1992Stuart Regen Gallery, now Regen Projects, Los Angeles, from the 1992 show; solo shows 2015, 2020, 2023.23
Representation31 May 2003Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, Paris, Havana and elsewhere, from the show of 31 May to 20 September 2003; Galleria Continua appears as the source in the 2018 Sotheby's provenance.88
Representation21 May 2003Kukje Gallery, Seoul, from the show of 21 May to 29 June 2003; SCAI the Bathhouse, Tokyo, show in 2016.89
Market3 May 1989First recorded auction result in HENI's record run: Three, USD 37,500, Sotheby's New York.90
Market14 Nov 2007Sotheby's New York: Untitled (1999), alabaster, USD 2.84 million (premium-inclusive as HENI reports).90
Market1 Jul 2008Sotheby's London, lot 6: Untitled (2003), alabaster, 197 x 192 x 58 cm, estimate GBP 1,000,000 to 1,500,000; GBP 1.95 million with premium (USD 3.87 million); hammer not published. The record.92
Market17 Nov 2017Sotheby's New York, lot 510: Untitled (2004), alabaster, USD 759,000.91
Market13 Feb 2020Phillips London, lot 35: Sky Mirror (2014), 260 cm, estimate GBP 800,000 to 1,200,000; no result published on the lot page.97
Market15 May 2024Phillips New York, lot 343: Random Triangle Mirror (2016), estimate USD 400,000 to 600,000; USD 673,100 with premium.96
Market10 Oct 2024Phillips London, lot 15: Untitled (2013), stainless steel and resin, estimate GBP 450,000 to 650,000; GBP 533,400 with premium.95
Market16 Oct 2025Bonhams London, lot 13: Untitled (2004), alabaster, GBP 483,000 inc. premium; artist's resale right payable (AR).94
Market14 Dec 2023Saffronart online, lot 201: 1988 aquatint trial proof (Crown Point Press), INR 720,000 (USD 8,675) inc. premium against INR 400,000 to 500,000.98
Market2026Published primary prices: Crown Point Press 1991 editions at USD 7,500 to 40,000 fair market value; The Dark, 2026 Edition, GBP 1,000 at the Southbank Centre shop; a signed print of 100 with the Steidl book at EUR 300 from the studio.99
Literature1998Anish Kapoor, Hayward Gallery and University of California Press, texts by Homi K. Bhabha and Pier Luigi Tazzi.24
Literature2009Anish Kapoor, Phaidon, texts by David Anfam, Johanna Burton, Donna De Salvo; cited by Sotheby's in 2018.24
Literature2009Anish Kapoor, Royal Academy of Arts, texts by Bhabha, Jean de Loisy and Norman Rosenthal.24
Literature2011Anish Kapoor, Flammarion, text by Homi K. Bhabha; and 'I have nothing to say', interviews edited by Richard Leydier, RMN.24
Literature2015Anish Kapoor. Versailles, RMN, texts by Julia Kristeva, Jean de Loisy, Richard Leydier, Alfred Pacquement.24
Literature2022Anish Kapoor, Painting (Koenig, Kristeva, Bhabha, Martin Kemp et al.) and Make New Space / Architectural Projects (Steidl, Deyan Sudjic, Richard Deacon et al.).24
Literature2026Anish Kapoor, Hayward Publishing, texts by Ralph Rugoff, Nancy Spector, Julia Kristeva, Sandhini Poddar; Lehmbruck Museum catalogue, Koenig, texts by Soke Dinkla, Anne Groh, Rugoff.24
Practice2026The studio is researching the provenance of early works and asks owners of drawings, paintings or sculptures dated 1970-1990 to write to [email protected].25
Practice24 Oct 2025The same call for early-works provenance is printed on the studio's page for the Jewish Museum show.78
Practice15 Jun 2017Anish Kapoor Foundation incorporated as a company limited by guarantee (10820170), museums activities; accounts to 30 June 2025 filed.31
Practice30 Jul 2021The Art Newspaper reported that the foundation, directed by Mario Codognato, was converting the Palazzo Priuli Manfrin, Venice, into its headquarters, exhibition space and workshop.30
PracticeNov 2023Kapoor releases about ten per cent of output a year; unreleased work stored in a warehouse north of London and intended for the foundation; the London studio employs technicians, fabricators and stone carvers.29
Practice2016Exclusive artistic-use licence for Vantablack from Surrey NanoSystems.100
Practice2025Reproduction rights administered by DACS (London), ARS (New York) and VG Bild-Kunst (Bonn), per museum captions.42
PracticeJan 2016Kapoor's 2018 complaint, as Hyperallergic reported it, states that he registered the copyright in Cloud Gate with the US Copyright Office in January 2016, although the object belongs to the City of Chicago.101
Public attention2012The ArcelorMittal Orbit received 130,000 visitors during the London 2012 Games, by its own site.2

Exhibitions

On now 4

  • On now
    Anish Kapoor
    Lehmbruck Museum · Duisburg, Germany
    25 Apr to 18 Oct 2026Confirmed
  • On now
    Anish Kapoor
    Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre · London, United Kingdom
    16 Jun to 18 Oct 2026Confirmed
  • On now
    Anish Kapoor
    Palazzo Manfrin · Venice, Italy
    6 May to 31 Oct 2026Confirmed
  • On now
    Anish Kapoor
    Serlachius Museums, Serlachius Manor · Mantta, Finland
    27 Jun 2026 to 4 Apr 2027Confirmed

Past exhibitions 34

  • Closed
    Earth Sky on Red Ground
    SCAD Museum of Art · Savannah, United States
    9 Feb to 7 Jun 2026Confirmed
  • Closed
    Anish Kapoor: Early Works
    The Jewish Museum · New York, United States
    24 Oct 2025 to 1 Feb 2026Confirmed
  • Closed
    Unseen
    ARKEN Museum of Contemporary Art · Ishoj, Denmark
    11 Apr to 20 Oct 2024Confirmed
  • Closed
    Monadic Singularity
    Liverpool Cathedral · Liverpool, United Kingdom
    10 Aug to 15 Sep 2024Confirmed
  • Closed
    Anish Kapoor. Untrue Unreal
    Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi · Florence, Italy
    7 Oct 2023 to 4 Feb 2024Confirmed
  • Closed
    Anish Kapoor (Gallerie dell'Accademia and Palazzo Manfrin)
    Gallerie dell'Accademia · Venice, Italy
    3 Apr to 9 Oct 2022Confirmed
  • Closed
    Anish Kapoor: Painting
    Modern Art Oxford · Oxford, United Kingdom
    2 Oct 2021 to 13 Feb 2022Confirmed
  • Closed
    Bangkok Art Biennale 2020
    Bangkok Art Biennale · Bangkok, Thailand
    29 Oct 2020 to 30 Apr 2021Confirmed
  • Closed
    Anish Kapoor at Houghton Hall
    Houghton Hall · King's Lynn, United Kingdom
    12 Jul to 1 Nov 2020Confirmed
  • Closed
    Anish Kapoor
    CAFA Art Museum · Beijing, China
    25 Oct 2019 to 1 Jan 2020Confirmed
  • Closed
    Anish Kapoor: Works, Thoughts, Experiments
    Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art · Porto, Portugal
    6 Jul 2018 to 6 Jan 2019Confirmed
  • Closed
    Places of Origin - Monuments for the 21st Century
    MAST Foundation · Bologna, Italy
    12 Oct 2017 to 11 Feb 2018Confirmed
  • Closed
    My Red Homeland
    Jewish Museum and Tolerance Centre · Moscow, Russia
    22 Sep 2015 to 17 Jan 2016Confirmed
  • Closed
    Kapoor Versailles
    Palace of Versailles · Versailles, France
    9 Jun to 1 Nov 2015Confirmed
  • Closed
    Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2014
    Kochi-Muziris Biennale · Kochi, India
    12 Dec 2014 to 29 Mar 2015Confirmed
  • Closed
    Anish Kapoor in Istanbul
    Sakip Sabanci Museum · Istanbul, Turkey
    10 Sep 2013 to 2 Feb 2014Confirmed
  • Closed
    Kapoor in Berlin
    Martin-Gropius-Bau · Berlin, Germany
    18 May to 24 Nov 2013Confirmed
  • Closed
    Anish Kapoor
    Museum of Contemporary Art Australia · Sydney, Australia
    20 Dec 2012 to 1 Apr 2013Confirmed
  • Closed
    Anish Kapoor
    Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art · Seoul, South Korea
    25 Oct 2012 to 8 Feb 2013Confirmed
  • Closed
    Anish Kapoor
    De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art · Tilburg, Netherlands
    13 Oct 2012 to 13 Jan 2013Confirmed
  • Closed
    Monumenta 2011: Leviathan
    Grand Palais · Paris, France
    11 May to 23 Jun 2011Confirmed
  • Closed
    Turning the World Upside Down
    Kensington Gardens, The Royal Parks and the Serpentine Gallery · London, United Kingdom
    28 Sep 2010 to 13 Mar 2011Confirmed
  • Closed
    Anish Kapoor, Delhi Mumbai
    Mehboob Studios · Mumbai, India
    30 Nov 2010 to 16 Feb 2011Confirmed
  • Closed
    Anish Kapoor
    Guggenheim Museum Bilbao · Bilbao, Spain
    16 Mar to 12 Oct 2010Confirmed
  • Closed
    Anish Kapoor
    Royal Academy of Arts · London, United Kingdom
    26 Sep to 11 Dec 2009Confirmed
  • Closed
    Shooting into the Corner
    MAK - Museum of Applied Arts · Vienna, Austria
    21 Jan to 19 Apr 2009Confirmed
  • Closed
    Memory
    Deutsche Guggenheim · Berlin, Germany
    30 Nov 2008 to 1 Feb 2009Confirmed
  • Closed
    Anish Kapoor: Past Present Future
    Institute of Contemporary Art · Boston, United States
    30 May to 7 Sep 2008Confirmed
  • Closed
    The Unilever Series: Anish Kapoor: Marsyas
    Tate Modern · London, United Kingdom
    9 Oct 2002 to 6 Apr 2003Confirmed
  • Closed
    Anish Kapoor
    Hayward Gallery · London, United Kingdom
    30 Apr to 14 Jun 1998Confirmed
  • Closed
    Anish Kapoor
    De Pont Foundation for Contemporary Art · Tilburg, Netherlands
    12 Mar to 2 Jul 1995Confirmed
  • Closed
    Turner Prize 1991
    Tate Gallery · London, United Kingdom
    6 Nov to 8 Dec 1991Confirmed
  • Closed
    Anish Kapoor, British Pavilion, XLIV Biennale di Venezia
    British Pavilion, Giardini · Venice, Italy
    27 May to 30 Sep 1990Confirmed
  • Closed
    Anish Kapoor
    Lisson Gallery · London, United Kingdom
    19 May to 12 Jun 1982Confirmed

The work

5 plates
ArcelorMittal Orbit, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London (2012)
ArcelorMittal Orbit, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London (2012)The ArcelorMittal Orbit, 114.5 m of red steel lattice with the two viewing platforms and, coiling round it, the Helix slide added in 2016; seen from UCL East across the park, November 2023, through a window whose frame shows at the left edge.Photograph by Matt Brown, CC BY 2.0 · Work permanently sited in public in the United Kingdom; reproduced under freedom of panorama (s.62 CDPA 1988)
ArcelorMittal Orbit, the lattice from below (2012)
ArcelorMittal Orbit, the lattice from below (2012)The Orbit from its base, April 2018: the tubular steel lattice, the upper viewing platform inside its ring and the stainless steel Helix slide threading through the structure.Photograph by Kallerna, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Work permanently sited in public in the United Kingdom; reproduced under freedom of panorama (s.62 CDPA 1988)
Temenos, Middlehaven Dock, Middlesbrough (2010)
Temenos, Middlehaven Dock, Middlesbrough (2010)Temenos seen along its axis, January 2020: the large steel ring in the foreground, the small ring and mast beyond and the cable net twisting between them; the Transporter Bridge and the dock clock tower stand in the background.Photograph by Reading Tom, CC BY 2.0 · Work permanently sited in public in the United Kingdom; reproduced under freedom of panorama (s.62 CDPA 1988)
Sky Mirror, Nottingham Playhouse, Wellington Circus (2001)
Sky Mirror, Nottingham Playhouse, Wellington Circus (2001)The original Sky Mirror, a six-metre concave dish of polished stainless steel set in a pool outside Nottingham Playhouse, April 2013: the sky and the terrace of Wellington Circus appear inverted in the dish, and the Playhouse's facade fills the left of the frame.Photograph by brianfagan, CC BY 2.0 · Work permanently sited in public in the United Kingdom; reproduced under freedom of panorama (s.62 CDPA 1988)
Sky Mirror (for Hendrik), De Pont Museum, Tilburg (2017)
Sky Mirror (for Hendrik), De Pont Museum, Tilburg (2017)Sky Mirror (for Hendrik) in the forecourt of De Pont, April 2019: the rectangular sheet of polished stainless steel, six and a half metres tall, leans at 30 degrees over the round brick-edged pond of Sophie Walker's garden, with the museum entrance to the right.Photograph by Peter Cox, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Work permanently sited in public in the Netherlands; reproduced under freedom of panorama (Art. 18 Auteurswet)

Chronology

  • 1954

    Born 12 March in Bombay (Mumbai).129

  • 1972-1978

    Moves to London (1972 by the Praemium Imperiale chronology, 1973 by the Smithsonian profile); Hornsey College of Art 1973-77, Chelsea School of Art 1977-78; Paul Neagu his teacher at Hornsey.452629

  • 1979

    Brief return to India; begins the powdered pigment works.45

  • 1980

    First solo exhibition, Patrice Alexandre, Paris.23

  • 1982

    First exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London, 19 May to 12 June; Lisson has represented him since.4926

  • 1990

    British Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 27 May to 30 September; Premio Duemila.5045

  • 1991

    Turner Prize, exhibition at the Tate Gallery 6 November to 8 December.36

  • 1992

    documenta 9, Kassel.45

  • 1996

    Altarpiece for the Frauenkirche, Dresden, in Kilkenny limestone.85

  • 2001

    Sky Mirror unveiled at Nottingham Playhouse on 27 April, GBP 921,000 of National Lottery funding; still outside the theatre twenty years on.131214

  • 2002

    Marsyas fills the Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, 9 October 2002 to 6 April 2003, with Cecil Balmond of Arup.3435

  • 2003

    Appointed CBE.45

  • 2004-2006

    Cloud Gate, Millennium Park, Chicago, 110 tons of welded stainless steel, his first public outdoor work in the United States.4423

  • 2008

    Auction record: Untitled (2003), alabaster, GBP 1.95 million with premium at Sotheby's London, 1 July.9092

  • 2009

    Royal Academy of Arts, main galleries, 26 September to 11 December; Tall Tree and the Eye in the courtyard.3756

  • 2008-2012

    Temenos, announced 10 July 2008 as the first of five Tees Valley Giants, presented to Middlesbrough on 10 June 2010; by June 2012 the other four were unlikely to be built. Guggenheim Bilbao show and the Kensington Gardens open-air show in 2010.879155758

  • 2011

    Leviathan at Monumenta, Grand Palais, 11 May to 23 June; Praemium Imperiale for sculpture.6045

  • 2012

    ArcelorMittal Orbit completed in May for the London Games, GBP 22.5 million by the Architects' Journal's 2011 figure; Padma Bhushan (India).81448

  • 2013

    Knight Bachelor, Birthday Honours, 'Sculptor. For services to Visual Arts.'; Kapoor in Berlin at the Martin-Gropius-Bau; Ark Nova inflated at Matsushima.466482

  • 2015

    Kapoor Versailles, 9 June to 1 November; Dirty Corner vandalised; the Tribunal Administratif de Versailles orders the graffiti covered in September.104103

  • 2016

    Exclusive licence for the artistic use of Vantablack from Surrey NanoSystems; the Orbit's Helix slide opens in June.291001

  • 2017

    Anish Kapoor Foundation incorporated 15 June; Genesis Prize, USD 1 million, directed to refugee charities by the Genesis Prize Foundation's announcement of January 2018; Sky Mirror (for Hendrik) at De Pont.314716

  • 2018

    Copyright complaint against the NRA filed in Chicago in June, as Hyperallergic reported; settled out of court in December with the image removed, as Artnet reported; Kapoor takes over the Palazzo Priuli Manfrin, Venice, for his foundation, by the Smithsonian's account.10110229

  • 2022

    Gallerie dell'Accademia and Palazzo Manfrin, Venice, 3 April to 9 October; the first Vantablack objects shown.3229

  • 2025

    Wilhelm Lehmbruck Prize; Monte Sant'Angelo station, Naples; BUTCHERED on a Shell platform with Greenpeace, 13 August; the Jewish Museum, New York, early-works show from 24 October.40838442

  • 2026

    Lehmbruck Museum (from 25 April, extended to 18 October), Palazzo Manfrin (6 May to 31 October), Hayward Gallery (16 June to 18 October); the studio asks owners of works dated 1970-1990 to come forward.2839803825

The market

The top of the market is the carved alabaster of 1997 to 2005: the record of GBP 1.95 million with premium at Sotheby's London in July 2008 has stood for eighteen years, and the same class of object made GBP 483,000 with premium at Bonhams in October 2025 after USD 759,000 at Sotheby's New York in 2017. Stainless steel wall mirrors of the 2010s sell in the middle six figures at Phillips, within estimate in London and above it in New York in the two 2024 sales read here; a 2014 Sky Mirror estimated at GBP 800,000 to 1,200,000 in February 2020 has no published result. Prints and editions run from a few thousand to USD 40,000 at the publisher. Sotheby's does not publish these hammer prices to the public; Phillips and Bonhams publish premium-inclusive figures; the hammer is therefore recorded as not published where that is the case. The artist's resale right is payable on UK and EU resales.

Auction results for Anish Kapoor
DateSaleWorkResultNote
1 July 2008Sotheby's, London, Contemporary Art Evening Auction, lot 6Untitled, 2003, alabaster, 197 x 192 x 58 cmHammer not published (results shown to logged-in users only)
With premium 1.95 million as HENI reports it (USD 3.87 million); the house's own figure is not public
GBP		Estimate GBP 1,000,000 to 1,500,000. Provenance Lisson Gallery; Galerie Karsten Greve, St Moritz; private. The auction record.
14 November 2007Sotheby's, New YorkUntitled, 1999, alabasterHammer not published
With premium 2,840,000
USD		The previous record, as HENI's table gives it.
17 November 2017Sotheby's, New York, lot 510Untitled, 2004, alabaster, 168 x 170 x 65 cmHammer not published
With premium 759,000
USD		The figure as HENI reports it; the lot is named in Bonhams' 2025 provenance.
15 May 2024Phillips, New York, Modern and Contemporary Art Day Sale, lot 343Random Triangle Mirror, 2016, stainless steel and resin, 177.8 x 177.8 x 26.7 cmHammer not published
With premium 673,100
USD		Estimate USD 400,000 to 600,000.
10 October 2024Phillips, London, Modern and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, lot 15Untitled, 2013, stainless steel and resin, 189.1 x 189.1 x 20.4 cmHammer not published
With premium 533,400
GBP		Estimate GBP 450,000 to 650,000; property from a European private collection.
16 October 2025Bonhams, London, New Bond Street, 20th and 21st Century Art Evening Sale, lot 13Untitled, 2004, alabaster, 168 x 170 x 65 cmHammer not published
With premium 483,000
GBP		'Sold for GBP 483,000 inc. premium'; AR, artist's resale right payable; exhibited on loan at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao in 2007; HENI records the same work at Bonhams London on 2 April 2025 with no price and counts seven earlier trades.
14 December 2023Saffronart, Winter Online Auction, lot 201Untitled, 1988, aquatint, trial proof from an edition of 20, Crown Point PressHammer not published
With premium 720,000 (USD 8,675)
INR		Estimate INR 400,000 to 500,000; winning bid stated inclusive of buyer's premium.

Hammer is the price at which the bidding stopped; with premium adds the fee the house charges the buyer on top. Hammer price and buyer's premium in the glossary.

Recorded without a public price

  • 13 February 2020 · Sky Mirror, 2014, stainless steel, 260 x 260 cm · Phillips, London, 20th Century and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, lot 35 · no result published Estimate GBP 800,000 to 1,200,000; the lot page carries no 'Sold For' line.

Where to see the work

Where to see the work of Anish Kapoor
InstitutionCityHoldingsNote
Nottingham PlayhouseNottinghamSky Mirror (2001), in the pool outside the theatre on Wellington CircusCommissioned by the Playhouse; the original of the series.
Middlehaven DockMiddlesbroughTemenos (2010), between the Transporter Bridge and the Riverside StadiumPriestman Road, TS3 6RT; Art UK TS3_HJC_S001.
Queen Elizabeth Olympic ParkLondonArcelorMittal Orbit (2012), with the Helix slideTicketed attraction operated with Zip World London; visible from the park free of charge.
De Pont MuseumTilburgSky Mirror (for Hendrik) (2017) in the forecourt; the museum relates it to its Vertigo (2008)The museum has collected Kapoor since the early 1990s.
Millennium Park, City of ChicagoChicagoCloud Gate (2004-06) on the AT&T PlazaOwned by the City of Chicago; the artist's 2018 complaint states he registered the copyright in January 2016.
Guggenheim Museum BilbaoBilbaoTall Tree & The Eye (2009), by the pondShown first in the Royal Academy courtyard in 2009.
TateLondon49 works, including Ishi's Light (2003) and pigment works of 1988-89Some works viewable by appointment only.
Kroller-Muller MuseumOtterloPart of the Red (1981), mixed media and pigmentLent to the Jewish Museum, New York, 2025-26.
MAK - Museum of Applied ArtsViennaShooting into the Corner (2008-09)Shown at the MAK in 2009 and lent to the Royal Academy, Versailles and Mumbai.
FrauenkircheDresdenAltarpiece (1996), Kilkenny limestoneAs the studio records it.
Monte Sant'Angelo metro stationNaplesThe Universita entrance in weathering steel and the Traiano entrance in aluminium (2025)A working station.
Palazzo Manfrin (Anish Kapoor Foundation)VeniceThe foundation's exhibition of 2026, 6 May to 31 October, ticketedFondamenta Venier, Cannaregio 342.

Forgeries and misattributions

Karamay, China, 2015: a copy of Cloud Gate
Hyperallergic reported in June 2018 that Kapoor had threatened to sue the Chinese authorities over 'a rather flagrant copy' of Cloud Gate unveiled in Karamay in 2015. It is a copy of a public work, not a forgery offered for sale; no forgery of a Kapoor is documented in the sources read for this page. Public and self-evident; the outcome of the threatened action is not recorded in the sources read.101

The essay

11 sections · about 3,000 words · 13 min
Chapter 1

A British sculptor who describes his relationship with Britain as complicated

The standard account calls Kapoor a British sculptor born in India, and every honours list agrees.

The standard account calls Kapoor a British sculptor born in India, and every honours list agrees. The record is less tidy. He was born in Bombay in 1954, spent time in Israel in the early 1970s, where by the account of the auction house Saffronart he studied electrical engineering, and arrived in London for art school; the Praemium Imperiale chronology gives 1972 and the Smithsonian profile 1973. At Hornsey the Romanian-born artist Paul Neagu was, in Kapoor's words, the teacher who 'understood that there was something more than self expression'. The Indian state gave him the Padma Bhushan in 2012, the British state a knighthood in 2013 and in 2023 the Smithsonian reported that after fifty years in Britain he had begun shifting his centre of gravity to Venice, where he set up a painting studio in a former boat repair workshop and where, by the same account, he had bought the Palazzo Priuli Manfrin for his foundation. His own site lists London and Venice as his working cities. He said of the honours: 'you get drawn into the establishment, but at the same time I've always felt uncomfortable about it.'

The second thing the standard account gets wrong is the idea that a Kapoor is a single monumental object. The Sky Mirror is a series; Descension was shown at Kochi, Versailles, the Seine and Brooklyn Bridge Park; Shooting into the Corner belongs to the MAK in Vienna and has been fired at the Royal Academy, at Versailles and in Mumbai; Ark Nova was inflated in four Japanese cities for the Lucerne Festival between 2013 and 2017. Titles travel. A record that does not carry the date, the dimensions and the material of a specific object is not a record of that object.

Chapter 2

The practice: pigment, stone, steel, PVC, wax, Vantablack and, since about 2016, paint

The early work, from 1979, was powdered pigment heaped over simple forms and spilling onto the floor; the Jewish Museum's 2025 exhibition brought some 55 of these pieces, drawings and sketchbooks...

The early work, from 1979, was powdered pigment heaped over simple forms and spilling onto the floor; the Jewish Museum's 2025 exhibition brought some 55 of these pieces, drawings and sketchbooks together for the first time in an American museum, with Part of the Red (1981) lent by the Kroller-Muller Museum. From 1987 Kapoor carved hollows into rough stone (Shrine, 1987; Void Field, 1989, which he showed in the British Pavilion in 1990), and from the 1990s he worked alabaster, touring the quarries of Volterra, Brescia and Carrara with the Brescia dealer Massimo Minini for blocks that are translucent when carved thin. The mirror works began in the mid-1990s; Sky Mirror (2001) was built in Finland, Cloud Gate is a seamless 110-ton ellipse of polished stainless steel plates and the Tilburg mirror was fabricated in Groningen and polished for two months in London.

The PVC works are engineered with Cecil Balmond of Arup: Marsyas (2002) spanned the 155 m of the Turbine Hall on three steel rings, Leviathan (2011) measured 33.6 by 99.89 by 72.23 m and took, by the Japan Art Association's account, a team of 150 people across Europe two years and HOWL (2020) is 14.3 by 21.6 by 21.6 m. Two wax works, Svayambh and Shooting into the Corner, were the centre of the 2009 Royal Academy show; the cannon fires red wax against the wall, where it builds up. In 2016 Kapoor signed with Surrey NanoSystems for the exclusive artistic use of Vantablack, a light-absorbing nanotechnology produced in a high-temperature reactor rather than a paint, which he has called 'extremely fragile'; the first Vantablack objects were shown in Venice in spring 2022. Over the last decade the paintings, in oil, silicone and resin, have taken a growing share of the exhibitions, and the Smithsonian reported in 2023 that he tries to finish a canvas a day.

The conservation questions follow from the materials. Polished stainless steel scratches and holds fingerprints; the Sotheby's New York condition report of May 2013 on a 1997 alabaster records nicks and a scratch on the face and inner rim, and calls its chalky areas 'inherent to the stone and the working process'. Pigment works shed. PVC membranes are stored rolled; Marsyas was, in 2008, 'rolled up and stored in a box in Norfolk'. Vantablack cannot be touched or cleaned in the ordinary way. A buyer of any of these asks the studio, not the auction house, how the object is to be kept.

Chapter 3

The chain from the studio: galleries, paperwork, the archive and the foundation

Works leave the studio through a small set of galleries whose names then head the provenance lines at auction: Lisson Gallery, London, since the show of 19 May to 12 June 1982; Barbara Gladstone in...

Works leave the studio through a small set of galleries whose names then head the provenance lines at auction: Lisson Gallery, London, since the show of 19 May to 12 June 1982; Barbara Gladstone in New York from 1984; Stuart Regen, now Regen Projects, in Los Angeles from 1992; Galleria Continua from 2003; Kukje in Seoul; SCAI the Bathhouse in Tokyo; Galleria Massimo Minini in Brescia. The Sotheby's 2008 record lot reads 'Lisson Gallery, London; Galerie Karsten Greve, St Moritz; private collection'; the 2018 alabaster reads 'Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, acquired by the present owner in 2005'; the Bonhams 2025 lot runs from Lisson through Galeria Carreras Mugica in Bilbao, a Bilbao collector, Eykyn Maclean in London, an American collector and a Sotheby's New York sale of 17 November 2017.

No certificate scheme is described on the studio's site, and none of the lot pages read for this record mentions a studio certificate for a sculpture; the prints carry a publisher's blind stamp (Crown Point Press for the 1988 to 1991 aquatints and drypoints) and an edition number, and a Crown Point trial proof sold at Saffronart's online auction in December 2023 carried the inscription T.P.C. What the studio does say, on its contact page and on the page for the Jewish Museum show, is that 'Anish Kapoor Studio is researching the provenance of early works and would like to hear from you if you own a drawing, painting or sculpture dated between 1970-1990'. That is the first public sign of a systematic register for the early corpus. The reproduction right is not the studio's to give alone: exhibition captions in 2025 and 2026 credit DACS in London, ARS in New York and VG Bild-Kunst in Bonn, so a licence to reproduce a work online in those countries runs through the society.

The estate plan is already visible. The Anish Kapoor Foundation was incorporated at Companies House on 15 June 2017 as a company limited by guarantee (number 10820170, museums activities, accounts to 30 June 2025), and The Art Newspaper reported in July 2021 that the charity, directed by Mario Codognato, had begun converting the Palazzo Priuli Manfrin in Cannaregio into its headquarters, exhibition space and workshop; the Smithsonian reported in 2023 that Kapoor himself had bought the palazzo from the local government and taken it over in 2018. The same article reported that he had bought a warehouse north of London to store unreleased work, much of which, he said, would be donated to the foundation eventually. The palazzo's 2026 exhibition runs from 6 May to 31 October, ticketed, and the studio sells from that page a signed edition of 100 prints with the Steidl book at EUR 300. The whole apparatus, studio, galleries, collecting societies, charity, palazzo, is the provenance chain of the future written forwards.

Chapter 4

The institutions: from the British Pavilion to three museum shows running at once

The museum career is continuous for forty years and the dates are given in the exhibitions data on this page.

The museum career is continuous for forty years and the dates are given in the exhibitions data on this page. The British Pavilion at Venice (27 May to 30 September 1990) brought the Premio Duemila; the Turner Prize followed in 1991 with a jury that included Nicholas Serota, Norman Rosenthal and Maria Corral; De Pont in Tilburg gave him a show in 1995 and has collected him since; the Hayward's 1998 survey was, in the Southbank Centre's words, his first major UK survey. Tate Modern's Turbine Hall commission (2002-03) was the third in the Unilever series, which Unilever funded with GBP 1.25 million over five years. The Royal Academy show of autumn 2009 surveyed the career to date across the main galleries of Burlington House; Monumenta at the Grand Palais (11 May to 23 June 2011) and Versailles (9 June to 1 November 2015) followed in France, Kapoor in Berlin at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in 2013 and a two-site show in Delhi and Mumbai in 2010-11.

In 2026 three institutions show him at once: the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg, which awarded him the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Prize in 2025 in a line that runs from Chillida through Beuys and Serra, from 25 April with an extension to 18 October; the Hayward Gallery from 16 June to 18 October, curated by Ralph Rugoff as his final show as director, with tickets at GBP 22; and his own Palazzo Manfrin in Venice from 6 May to 31 October, alongside the Serlachius Museum in Finland from 27 June 2026 to 4 April 2027. Tate lists 49 works in its collection; the Guggenheim Bilbao keeps Tall Tree & The Eye (2009) on view by its pond; the Kroller-Muller has Part of the Red (1981); Tate's 2002 press release names MoMA, the Reina Sofia and the Stedelijk, and Bonhams in 2025 adds the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Fondazione Prada.

Chapter 5

The public works, and who owns them

Sky Mirror at Nottingham Playhouse was commissioned by the theatre and unveiled on 27 April 2001 with GBP 921,000 of National Lottery money, then the largest grant to any single artwork, as part of a...

Sky Mirror at Nottingham Playhouse was commissioned by the theatre and unveiled on 27 April 2001 with GBP 921,000 of National Lottery money, then the largest grant to any single artwork, as part of a GBP 1.2 million refurbishment; the BBC noted on the day that it was Kapoor's only work on permanent public display in Britain. Cloud Gate in Chicago belongs to the City, which commissioned it. Temenos was commissioned by Tees Valley Regeneration as the first of five Tees Valley Giants, funded by One North East, Arts Council England and the Northern Rock Foundation among others, with Middlesbrough FC pledging about GBP 350,000 in 2008, cost GBP 2.7 million and was presented to the town on 10 June 2010; by June 2012 both the commissioning body and the development agency had been disbanded and the BBC reported that the other four giants were unlikely to be built. Art UK records the work under accession number TS3_HJC_S001 at Priestman Road.

The ArcelorMittal Orbit was commissioned by the Greater London Authority from a shortlist for a permanent tower for the Olympic Park; the Architects' Journal put the cost at GBP 22.5 million in June 2011 with ArcelorMittal funding up to 86 per cent, the steel was fabricated in 600 nodes by Watson Steel in Bolton and the tower was completed in May 2012 and reopened with the park on 5 April 2014. Its own site says it received 130,000 visitors during the Games. Carsten Holler's 178 m Helix slide, added in 2016 at Kapoor's invitation, is now part of what a visitor sees. Sky Mirror (for Hendrik) was made possible, by De Pont's account, by contributions from the artist and the museum and a gift from the city of Tilburg, Brabant C, private benefactors and named corporate donors, and is accessioned as 2017.AK.11. The Naples station entrances of 2025 are in weathering steel and aluminium. Each of these has an owner who is not the artist, which is what makes them photographable here under freedom of panorama and also what makes the copyright, which stays with Kapoor, worth registering.

Chapter 6

The market: alabaster at the top, mirrors in the middle, prints at the base

The auction record is an alabaster: Untitled (2003), 197 by 192 by 58 cm, the largest of the alabasters and the first double-concave piece to come to auction, sold at Sotheby's London on 1 July 2008...

The auction record is an alabaster: Untitled (2003), 197 by 192 by 58 cm, the largest of the alabasters and the first double-concave piece to come to auction, sold at Sotheby's London on 1 July 2008 against an estimate of GBP 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 for GBP 1.95 million with premium (USD 3.87 million, as HENI reports it); Sotheby's shows the result only to logged-in users. The previous record, another alabaster of 1999, made USD 2.84 million in New York on 14 November 2007, and HENI's table of successive records begins with 'Three' at USD 37,500 in May 1989. The alabasters have not held that level: the 2004 double-concave Untitled sold at Sotheby's New York on 17 November 2017 for USD 759,000 and again at Bonhams London on 16 October 2025 for GBP 483,000 including premium, after HENI's table records it at Bonhams London on 2 April 2025 with no price.

The wall mirrors sit in the middle. A 2013 stainless steel and resin Untitled, 189 cm square, made GBP 533,400 with premium at Phillips London on 10 October 2024 against GBP 450,000 to 650,000; Random Triangle Mirror (2016) made USD 673,100 with premium at Phillips New York on 15 May 2024 against USD 400,000 to 600,000. A 260 cm Sky Mirror of 2014 was offered at Phillips London on 13 February 2020 at GBP 800,000 to 1,200,000 and the lot page publishes no result. The prints are where the market starts: Crown Point Press publishes fair market values for its 1991 Kapoor editions from USD 7,500 for Door (edition of 20) to USD 40,000 for Mother As A Void (edition of 9), and a 1988 aquatint trial proof made INR 720,000 with premium at Saffronart in December 2023. The Southbank Centre shop lists a 2026 edition, The Dark, at GBP 1,000, and the studio a signed print of 100 at EUR 300 with a book. On resales within the UK and EU the artist's resale right is payable: Bonhams marks the 2025 lot AR, 'goods subject to Artists Resale Right Additional Premium'.

Chapter 7

Authenticity today: the studio, the societies and one copy in Karamay

There is no catalogue raisonne and no authentication board; the authority is the living artist and Anish Kapoor Studio, which the Jewish Museum credits as its collaborator on the early-works show and...

There is no catalogue raisonne and no authentication board; the authority is the living artist and Anish Kapoor Studio, which the Jewish Museum credits as its collaborator on the early-works show and which is now gathering provenance on everything dated 1970 to 1990. No forgery of a Kapoor is documented in the sources read for this page. The one documented copy is of a public work: Hyperallergic reported in 2018 that Kapoor had threatened to sue the Chinese authorities over a copy of Cloud Gate unveiled in Karamay in 2015. The buyer's protection is the gallery invoice and the studio's word, and for the prints the publisher's blind stamp.

The copyright is defended. In June 2018 Kapoor filed a copyright complaint in the US District Court in Chicago against the National Rifle Association over a one-second shot of Cloud Gate in its 2017 video; the complaint, as Hyperallergic summarised it, sought USD 150,000 per infringement. Artnet reported on 6 December 2018 that the case was settled out of court, that the NRA agreed to remove the image and that Kapoor's statement claimed 'victory over the NRA' and named the pro bono legal teams; Artnet also noted that the statement made no reference to the other demands.

Chapter 8

What is contested: Vantablack, the Versailles graffiti and the price of public art

The Vantablack licence of 2016 drew a public quarrel.

The Vantablack licence of 2016 drew a public quarrel. Hyperallergic reported, citing the Daily Mail, that the painter Christian Furr objected to one artist monopolising a material, and that Surrey NanoSystems then clarified that Kapoor held exclusive rights 'only in the field of art'. The painter Stuart Semple, as the Smithsonian recounted in 2023, sold a 'pinkest pink' pigment on condition that the buyer was not Anish Kapoor, and Kapoor answered with an Instagram image of his middle finger dipped in it; in the same article Kapoor called Semple 'that silly young fellow' and said of Vantablack, 'it isn't a color', but 'a highly complicated, bloody difficult, damned expensive technical process'. Both men's positions are on the record; no litigation between them appears in the sources read for this page.

At Versailles in 2015 Dirty Corner, a steel and rock work over sixty metres long, was repeatedly vandalised with antisemitic graffiti. Kapoor chose to leave the graffiti in place, as the Center for Art Law's account of August 2016 records; the Versailles councillor Fabien Bougle filed a complaint with the public prosecutor against Kapoor and Catherine Pegard, the president of Versailles, alleging incitement to racial hatred, and in September 2015 the Tribunal Administratif de Versailles ordered the graffiti covered, stating that the artist's freedom 'has to be reconciled with respect for other fundamental liberties'. The graffiti was covered with gold leaf. Kapoor, reached in Moscow at the opening of his show there, called the decision a 'perverse reversal'. No finding was made against Kapoor on the complaint in any source read for this page.

The cheaper argument is about money. Kapoor put it himself in 2008, when Temenos was announced: 'There are all the arguments about public art - couldn't we have spent money on a hospital, say - and all the arguments are correct.' The Tees Valley Giants were to cost GBP 15 million; one was built.

Chapter 9

The literature

The studio's own list runs from the British Pavilion catalogue of 1990 (Thomas McEvilley) through the Hayward catalogue of 1998 (Homi K.

The studio's own list runs from the British Pavilion catalogue of 1990 (Thomas McEvilley) through the Hayward catalogue of 1998 (Homi K. Bhabha and Pier Luigi Tazzi, University of California Press), the Royal Academy catalogue of 2009 (Bhabha, Jean de Loisy, Norman Rosenthal), the Phaidon monograph of 2009 (David Anfam, Johanna Burton, Donna De Salvo), Bhabha's Flammarion volume of 2011, the Monumenta and Versailles catalogues from RMN (2011, 2015), 'Anish Kapoor, Painting' (Koenig, 2022, with Julia Kristeva and Martin Kemp) and 'Make New Space / Architectural Projects' (Steidl, 2022). The 2026 Hayward catalogue carries texts by Ralph Rugoff, Nancy Spector, Kristeva and Sandhini Poddar; the Lehmbruck catalogue by Soke Dinkla, Anne Groh and Rugoff. Bhabha, who has written on the work since 1993, and Kristeva, since Versailles, are the critics to read first; the Sotheby's 2018 catalogue note cites Anfam's Phaidon volume, which is how the trade reads him.

Chapter 10

What the void is for

Kapoor names his sources himself, and they are not hidden.

Kapoor names his sources himself, and they are not hidden. The pigment works of 1979 followed a return to India; the carved stones are described by the Japan Art Association as alluding to dualities of earth and sky, matter and spirit, body and mind; Temenos is named from the Greek for a precinct cut off and dedicated to a god, and Svayambh from the Sanskrit for self-generated. The Marsyas of 2002 is the satyr flayed by Apollo, and Kapoor said of its red skin that he wanted 'to make body into sky'. Of the hollows he said, in words Bonhams quoted in its 2025 catalogue note: 'The void is not silent. I have always thought of it more as a transitional space, an in-between space. It's very much to do with time.' Of the Tilburg mirror he said, 'I hope that it brings heaven to earth. A bit of paradise.' To the Japan Art Association he said that one of the principal jobs of the artist is 'to make things that in spite of all rationality remain mysterious'.

The readings that go beyond this are the critics' and are labelled as such: Bhabha's 'Making Emptiness' (1998), reprinted on the studio's site, and Kristeva's conversation with Kapoor, 'Blood and Light', argue the psychoanalytic case. The recent work is also openly political: BUTCHERED, a 12 by 8 m canvas, was installed on a Shell gas platform in the North Sea on 13 August 2025 in collaboration with Greenpeace, as the studio records it.

Chapter 11

What is happening now

As of September 2026 the Hayward and Lehmbruck shows are open until 18 October, the Palazzo Manfrin until 31 October and the Serlachius Museum until April 2027; the Jewish Museum's early-works show...

As of September 2026 the Hayward and Lehmbruck shows are open until 18 October, the Palazzo Manfrin until 31 October and the Serlachius Museum until April 2027; the Jewish Museum's early-works show closed on 1 February 2026 and the SCAD show on 7 June. The studio is collecting provenance on works of 1970 to 1990. The foundation's next accounts, to 30 June 2026, are due at Companies House by 31 March 2027. Nothing by Kapoor is recorded here as consigned or in dispute.

What is documented

Full name and style
Anish Mikhail Kapoor; Sir Anish Kapoor CBE RA in Tate's styling. Knight Bachelor, Birthday Honours 2013, 'Sculptor. For services to Visual Arts.'4633
Born
12 March 1954, Bombay.1
Works in
London and Venice, by the studio's own biography; the London studio employs technicians, fabricators and stone carvers.2329
First solo show
1980, Patrice Alexandre, Paris; first Lisson Gallery show 19 May to 12 June 1982.2349
Reproduction rights
Administered by DACS (UK), ARS (US) and VG Bild-Kunst (Germany), as the 2025-2026 exhibition captions credit them.423927
Foundation
Anish Kapoor Foundation, company limited by guarantee 10820170, incorporated 15 June 2017, museums activities; director Mario Codognato; converting the Palazzo Priuli Manfrin, Venice, into its headquarters (The Art Newspaper, 2021), a palazzo the Smithsonian reported in 2023 that Kapoor had bought.313029
Output
'I probably let 10 percent out into the world on a yearly basis' (Kapoor, 2023); unreleased work stored in a warehouse north of London.29
Tate holdings
49 works, including Ishi's Light (2003) and pigment works of 1988-89.33
Auction record
Untitled (2003), alabaster, GBP 1.95 million with premium (USD 3.87 million), Sotheby's London, 1 July 2008, estimate GBP 1,000,000 to 1,500,000.9092
Vantablack
Exclusive artistic-use licence from Surrey NanoSystems, 2016; first objects shown Venice 2022.29100

Technique

Pigment
From 1979: loose powdered pigment over simple forms and onto the floor; the Jewish Museum's 2025 show gathered some 55 early works. The pigment sheds and is re-laid at each installation.4542
Stone and alabaster
Carved voids from 1987 (Shrine; Void Field, 1989); Italian alabaster chosen at the quarries of Volterra, Brescia and Carrara with Massimo Minini, translucent when thin. A Sotheby's condition report of 2013 records nicks at the inner rim and chalky areas 'inherent to the stone and the working process'.9390105
Mirror-polished stainless steel
Sky Mirror (2001, 575 cm) built in Finland; Cloud Gate a seamless 110-ton ellipse of polished stainless steel plates; the Tilburg sheet fabricated in Groningen and polished two months in London; wall mirrors in stainless steel and resin signed and dated on the reverse.1314441695
Steel structures with Cecil Balmond
Temenos: two stainless steel rings, a mast and a cable net, 156 tonnes, 50 by 110 m; the Orbit: 2,000 tonnes of steel in 600 prefabricated nodes, 114.5 m, 35,000 bolts, 60 per cent recycled steel.6532
PVC membranes
Marsyas (2002) on three steel rings across 155 m; Leviathan (2011), 33.6 x 99.89 x 72.23 m; Ark Nova (2013), 18 x 29 x 36 m, an inflatable concert hall with Arata Isozaki; HOWL (2020), 14.3 x 21.6 x 21.6 m. Stored rolled between showings.3460828610
Wax
Svayambh and Shooting into the Corner (2008-09), the latter a cannon firing red wax against the gallery wall; shown at the MAK, the Royal Academy, Versailles and Mumbai.375567
Vantablack
A light-absorbing nanotechnology produced in a high-temperature reactor, not a paint, licensed exclusively for art in 2016; Kapoor calls it 'extremely fragile'; makes a three-dimensional form read as flat.2927
Painting
Oil, silicone and resin on canvas, red predominant, mixed from an alizarin crimson base; a canvas a day when in painting mode; shown from Modern Art Oxford (2021-22) onwards.297426

The surviving work

What is accepted
No catalogue raisonne exists and no count of accepted works is published. Kapoor said in November 2023 that he releases about ten per cent of what he makes each year and stores the rest in a warehouse north of London for the foundation; Tate alone holds 49 works. The studio began, by 2026, a public call for the provenance of works dated 1970-1990.
What is contested
Nothing is recorded as contested. The Sky Mirror title covers at least five distinct objects of different dates and dimensions, which is the confusion to guard against; HENI counts seven earlier trades of the 2004 alabaster sold in 2025, among them an offering at Bonhams London on 2 April 2025 with no published price.
Who rules on attribution
The artist and Anish Kapoor Studio, London ([email protected]), which collaborated with the Jewish Museum on the 2025 early-works show and is researching the early corpus; reproduction rights through DACS (UK), ARS (US) and VG Bild-Kunst (Germany); the Anish Kapoor Foundation (charity, company 10820170) as the intended long-term holder of the unreleased work.
There are all the arguments about public art - couldn't we have spent money on a hospital, say - and all the arguments are correct. But what happens after a while is that these things have the possibility of infiltrating people's consciousness. You can't say it's going to happen, but you can hope it does.Anish Kapoor to Mark Brown, The Guardian, 10 July 2008, on the day the GBP 2.7 million Temenos and the GBP 15 million Tees Valley Giants were announced; it matters because the public works are the part of his corpus that anyone can check, and because he conceded the objection before making the case.

Questions about Anish Kapoor

Who is Anish Kapoor?

Sculptor; Painter.

How are fakes and misattributions of Anish Kapoor detected?

Karamay, China, 2015: a copy of Cloud Gate. Hyperallergic reported in June 2018 that Kapoor had threatened to sue the Chinese authorities over 'a rather flagrant copy' of Cloud Gate unveiled in Karamay in 2015. It is a copy of a public work, not a forgery offered for sale; no forgery of a Kapoor is documented in the sources read for this page.

Where can you see work by Anish Kapoor?

Nottingham Playhouse (Nottingham); Middlehaven Dock (Middlesbrough); Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (London); De Pont Museum (Tilburg); Millennium Park, City of Chicago (Chicago); Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (Bilbao).

What does the market for Anish Kapoor look like?

The top of the market is the carved alabaster of 1997 to 2005: the record of GBP 1.95 million with premium at Sotheby's London in July 2008 has stood for eighteen years, and the same class of object made GBP 483,000 with premium at Bonhams in October 2025 after USD 759,000 at Sotheby's New York in 2017. Stainless steel wall mirrors of the 2010s sell in the middle six figures at Phillips, within estimate in London and above it in New York in the two 2024 sales read here; a 2014 Sky Mirror estimated at GBP 800,000 to 1,200,000 in February 2020 has no published result.

What is still unresolved about Anish Kapoor?

Does the studio issue certificates of authenticity for sculptures, and since when? No lot page or studio page read for this record describes one.

Open questions

  • Does the studio issue certificates of authenticity for sculptures, and since when? No lot page or studio page read for this record describes one.
  • How many works exist, released and unreleased? Kapoor's 'ten per cent a year' of 2023 implies a large unreleased body in the London warehouse; no count is published.
  • Will the studio's 2026 provenance research on works of 1970-1990 be published as a register or catalogue?
  • What are the hammer prices behind the premium-inclusive figures published by Phillips and Bonhams, and behind the 2008 record at Sotheby's?
  • Did the 2014 Sky Mirror offered at Phillips in February 2020 sell after the sale, and where is it now?
  • The cost of the ArcelorMittal Orbit: GBP 22.5 million per the Architects' Journal (2011); what the 2010 announcement gave is not recorded here.
  • Who owns Temenos today, after the disbanding of Tees Valley Regeneration and One North East, and who maintains the cable net?
  • What did the palazzo cost, who holds title to it, and what does the foundation hold? The foundation's filed accounts would answer the last question.

Sources

  1. 1ArcelorMittal Orbit (official site of the attraction, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park), 'Anish Kapoor' supporters page: 'commissioned as a permanent artwork for London's Olympic Park and completed in 2012'; born 12 March 1954 in Bombay; Hornsey and Chelsea; the Slide by Carsten Holler opened June 2016; Kapoor's statement 'I wanted the sensation of instability'. arcelormittalorbit.com/supporters/...
  2. 2ArcelorMittal Orbit (official site), 'About the ArcelorMittal Orbit': designed by Sir Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond; 35,000 bolts; 60 per cent recycled steel; 600 prefabricated nodes made by a team of 100 in Bolton; 'delighted 130,000 visitors during the Games'; reopened 5 April 2014; Helix slide opened summer 2016. arcelormittalorbit.com/about/...
  3. 3Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (London Legacy Development Corporation), 'ArcelorMittal Orbit' venue page: 114.5 m; 2,000 tonnes of steel made by ArcelorMittal; viewing platforms at 80 m and 76 m; Helix slide 178 m by Carsten Holler; operated with Zip World London. queenelizabetholympicpark.co.uk/explore-park/...
  4. 4Architects' Journal, 'ArcelorMittal Orbit, Olympic Park, London by Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond with Ushida Findlay Architects and Arup' (June 2011): total cost GBP 22.5 million, ArcelorMittal funding up to 86 per cent, steelwork by Watson Steel, construction from November 2010; Balmond quoted. architectsjournal.co.uk/archive/...
  5. 5Tees Valley Museums (the museums service of the Tees Valley councils), 'Temenos': 50 m high by 110 m long, unveiled 2010, commissioned as part of a regeneration initiative for the Tees Valley; the conceptual model made from a pair of tights stretched between two rings; carries Kapoor's statement on the work. teesvalleymuseums.org/object/...
  6. 6Art UK, public sculpture record 'Temenos', Anish Kapoor (b.1954) and Cecil Balmond (b.1943), 2008-2010, stainless steel, H 5000 x W 11000 x D 3200 cm, accession number TS3_HJC_S001, 156 tonnes, GBP 2.7 million, located at Middlehaven Dock, Priestman Road, Middlesbrough TS3 6RT. artuk.org/discover/...
  7. 7BBC News, 'Huge GBP 2.7m Temenos sculpture unveiled in Middlesbrough', 10 June 2010: four months to assemble; funding from One North East, Arts Council England and the Northern Rock Foundation among others; first of five planned Tees Valley Giants; Sean Egan of Tees Valley Regeneration quoted. bbc.co.uk/news/...
  8. 8BBC News, 'Monumental artwork plans revealed', 10 July 2008: Tees Valley Regeneration announces five works by Kapoor and Balmond of Arup; Temenos 50 m high, 110 m long, GBP 2.7m; a planning application submitted to Middlesbrough Council; Joe Docherty quoted. news.bbc.co.uk/2/...
  9. 9BBC News, 'Teesside art giants plan axed', 19 June 2012: the four remaining Tees Valley Giants unlikely to be built; One North East and Tees Valley Regeneration both disbanded. bbc.co.uk/news/...
  10. 10Mark Brown, 'Big in Middlesbrough: Anish Kapoor unveils plans for giant public artwork', The Guardian, 10 July 2008: Kapoor and Balmond quoted; Middlesbrough FC contributing about GBP 350,000; whole project some GBP 15m; Marsyas 'rolled up and stored in a box in Norfolk'; Kapoor brought on board in 2004. theguardian.com/artanddesign/...
  11. 11Nottingham Playhouse, 'Our Story' (about-us page): 'Six metres in diameter and weighing more than 10 tonnes, the Sky Mirror was installed in 2001 and transformed the entrance to our building.' nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk/about-us/...
  12. 12Nottingham Playhouse, 'Reflections: Looking back on 20 years of Sky Mirror' (2021): unveiled outside the Playhouse in 2001; voted Nottingham's favourite landmark in 2007. nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk/reflections-sky-mirror-birthday
  13. 13BBC News, 'Fire-starting sculpture unveiled', 27 April 2001: Sky Mirror unveiled in Nottingham; GBP 921,000 of National Lottery funding, the largest given to any single artwork; part of a GBP 1.2m refurbishment; commissioned by Nottingham Playhouse; built in Finland; executive director Venu Dhupa quoted; 'Kapoor's only work on permanent public display in the UK'. news.bbc.co.uk/1/...
  14. 14Anish Kapoor studio website, work page 'Sky Mirror', 2001, stainless steel, diameter 575 cm, Nottingham Playhouse, U.K. anishkapoor.com/550/...
  15. 15Anish Kapoor studio website, work page 'Temenos', 2010, steel, 110 m long and 50 m high, Middlesbrough Dock, Middlehaven; Kapoor's statement on the fragile materiality of the steel. anishkapoor.com/157/...
  16. 16De Pont Museum, Tilburg, collection page 'Sky Mirror (for Hendrik)', 2017, stainless steel on stainless steel plinth in a garden by Sophie Walker, 650 x 250 cm, collection number 2017.AK.11; the steel sheet fabricated in Groningen and polished for two months in London; made for the museum's 25th anniversary; funded by the artist, the museum, the city of Tilburg, Brabant C and named donors; Kapoor quoted. depont.nl/en/...
  17. 17Wikimedia Commons, file page and API record for 'ArcelorMittal Orbit from UCL East.jpg' (LicenseShortName CC BY 2.0; author Matt Brown; Flickr, 23 November 2023). commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/...
  18. 18Wikimedia Commons, file page and API record for 'ArcelorMittal Orbit Queen Elizabeth Park.jpg' (LicenseShortName CC BY-SA 4.0; author Kallerna; own work, 14 April 2018). commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/...
  19. 19Wikimedia Commons, file page and API record for 'Temenos (49498290996).jpg' (LicenseShortName CC BY 2.0; author Reading Tom; Flickr, 31 January 2020). commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/...
  20. 20Wikimedia Commons, file page and API record for 'Nottingham Playhouse and Sky Mirror.jpg' (LicenseShortName CC BY 2.0; author brianfagan; Flickr, 2 April 2013). commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/...
  21. 21Wikimedia Commons, file page and API record for 'Sky Mirror (for Hendrik) 2017, Anish Kapoor, photo Peter Cox (2019).jpg' (LicenseShortName CC BY-SA 4.0; uploaded by Museum de Pont as own work; photograph Peter Cox, 15 April 2019). commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/...
  22. 22Wikimedia Commons, file page and API record for 'Anish Kapoor 2017.jpg' (LicenseShortName CC BY-SA 4.0; author Vogler; own work, 9 December 2017; 'interviewed about his new virtual reality artwork at the Nobel Week Dialogue in 2017'). commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/...
  23. 23Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Biography': born in Mumbai, 1954; lives and works in London and Venice; selected solo exhibitions, commissions and projects from 1980 (Patrice Alexandre, Paris) to 2026, with venues and cities by year. anishkapoor.com/biography
  24. 24Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Publications': selected monographs and exhibition catalogues 1990-2026 with authors, publishers and ISBNs. anishkapoor.com/publications
  25. 25Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Contact' (read 16 September 2026): 'Anish Kapoor Studio is researching the provenance of early works and would like to hear from you if you own a drawing, painting or sculpture dated between 1970-1990'; info (at) kapoorstudio (dot) com. anishkapoor.com/contact
  26. 26Lisson Gallery, artist page 'Anish Kapoor': studied at Hornsey College of Art (1973-77) and Chelsea School of Art (1977-78); lives and works in London and Venice; featured works with media and dimensions; the Serlachius Museum show 27 June 2026 to 4 April 2027; gallery shows 2022-2026; link to the 2026 press pack. lissongallery.com/artists/...
  27. 27Lisson Gallery news, 'Anish Kapoor Exhibition Announced for Southbank Centre's Hayward Gallery, Summer 2026', 1 June 2026: curated by Ralph Rugoff; new inflatable commission; Vantablack works; Kapoor quoted; image credit 'DACS, 2025'. lisson.com/news/...
  28. 28Lisson Gallery news, ''Anish Kapoor' at the Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, Germany', 31 March 2026: 25 April to 30 August 2026; image credit VG Bild-Kunst 2026. lissongallery.com/news/...
  29. 29Jay Cheshes, 'An Inside Look at Anish Kapoor's Next Act', Smithsonian Magazine, November 2023: the Venice painting studio; the Vantablack deal of 2016 and the Official Secrets Act; Stuart Semple's pinkest pink; the London studio's technicians, fabricators and stone carvers; 'I probably let 10 percent out into the world on a yearly basis'; the warehouse north of London; the foundation, Mario Codognato and the Palazzo Priuli Manfrin bought from the local government and taken over in 2018; the estate; Premio Duemila 1990; knighted 2013; Greg Hilty of Lisson quoted. smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/...
  30. 30The Art Newspaper, 'Anish Kapoor is converting a vast, crumbling Venetian palace into his permanent exhibition space and workshop', 30 July 2021: the Anish Kapoor Foundation, founded 2017 as a charity, registered in west London, director Mario Codognato, the Venice city council approved plans for the foundation to convert the Palazzo Priuli Manfrin into its headquarters, exhibition venue, studio and repository; architects FWR Associati and UNA studio; Kapoor quoted. theartnewspaper.com/2021/...
  31. 31Companies House, 'ANISH KAPOOR FOUNDATION', company number 10820170: private company limited by guarantee, incorporated 15 June 2017, active, SIC 91020 museums activities, last accounts made up to 30 June 2025, registered office at 6 New Street Square, London EC4A 3AQ. find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/compan...
  32. 32Regen Projects, Los Angeles, artist page 'Anish Kapoor': installation views with dates, including Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia and Palazzo Manfrin, 3 April to 9 October 2022, Skulpturen-Park Waldfrieden, Wuppertal, 13 August 2022 to 2 January 2023, and Regen Projects, 4 March to 15 April 2023. regenprojects.com/artists/...
  33. 33Tate, artist page 'Sir Anish Kapoor CBE RA, born 1954': 49 works in the Tate collection, including Ishi's Light (2003) and the pigment works of 1988-89. tate.org.uk/art/...
  34. 34Tate Modern, 'The Unilever Series: Anish Kapoor: Marsyas', 9 October 2002 to 6 April 2003: three steel rings and a single span of PVC membrane; the first use of the whole 155 m of the Turbine Hall; Kapoor quoted. tate.org.uk/whats-on/...
  35. 35Tate press release, 'The Unilever Series: Anish Kapoor' (2002): curated by Donna De Salvo with Cecil Balmond of Arup; Unilever's support of GBP 1.25 million over five years; works held by Tate, the Museum of Modern Art New York, the Reina Sofia Madrid and the Stedelijk Amsterdam; Kapoor quoted on the Turbine Hall. tate.org.uk/press/...
  36. 36Tate Britain, 'Turner Prize 1991', exhibition 6 November to 8 December 1991: the prize awarded to Anish Kapoor; shortlist Ian Davenport, Fiona Rae, Rachel Whiteread; jury Maria Corral, Penny Govett, Andrew Graham-Dixon, Norman Rosenthal, Adrian Ward-Jackson, Nicholas Serota. tate.org.uk/whats-on/...
  37. 37Royal Academy of Arts, exhibition page 'Anish Kapoor', 26 September to 11 December 2009, Main Galleries, Burlington House: a survey of the career to date; Svayambh, Shooting into the Corner (MAK, Vienna), Tall Tree and the Eye in the Annenberg Courtyard; admission GBP 12. royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/...
  38. 38Southbank Centre, 'Anish Kapoor', Hayward Gallery, 16 June to 18 October 2026: curated by Ralph Rugoff, his final show as Director; tickets GBP 22; Vantablack works and mirror sculptures; supported by Lisson and named donors; shop listing 'Anish Kapoor - The Dark, 2026 Edition' at GBP 1,000 and the exhibition catalogue at GBP 35. southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/...
  39. 39Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, exhibition page 'Anish Kapoor. Winner of the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Prize of the City of Duisburg and the Rhineland Regional Council', extended through 18 October 2026; image credit 'VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026'. lehmbruckmuseum.de/exhibitions/...
  40. 40Lehmbruck Museum, 'Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Preis' page: laureates 1966 Eduardo Chillida to 2025 Anish Kapoor, including Tinguely, Oldenburg, Beuys, Serra, Long, Paik and Horn. lehmbruckmuseum.de/museum/...
  41. 41Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, 'Anish Kapoor. Untrue Unreal', 7 October 2023 to 4 February 2024, curated by Arturo Galansino; a new architecturally scaled work for the Renaissance courtyard. palazzostrozzi.org/en/...
  42. 42The Jewish Museum, New York, 'Anish Kapoor: Early Works', 24 October 2025 to 1 February 2026: some 55 works; the first US museum presentation of the early work; organised by Darsie Alexander and Shira Backer with the artist and his studio; caption for Part of the Red (1981) in the Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, credited 'DACS, London / ARS, NY 2025'. thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/...
  43. 43Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, collection page 'Tall Tree & The Eye', 2009, stainless steel and carbon steel, 1297 x 442 x 440 cm, currently on view (Pond); 73 reflective spheres around three axes. guggenheim-bilbao.eus/en/...
  44. 44City of Chicago, Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, 'Cloud Gate in Millennium Park': Kapoor's first public outdoor work in the United States; 110 tons of polished stainless steel plates, 66 feet long by 33 feet high, on the AT&T Plaza. chicago.gov/city/...
  45. 45The Japan Art Association, Praemium Imperiale, laureate page 'Anish Kapoor', the 23rd Praemium Imperiale (2011), Sculpture: biography and chronology (moved to the UK 1972; Hornsey and Chelsea 1973-78; pigment from 1979; first Lisson show 1982; Venice and Premio Duemila 1990; Turner Prize 1991; documenta 9, 1992; CBE 2003); Leviathan made by a team of 150 across Europe over two years; Ark Nova with Arata Isozaki; Kapoor quoted. praemiumimperiale.org/en/...
  46. 46Cabinet Office, 'Birthday Honours 2013' transparency data (CSV), row: 'Knighthoods, Kt, Knight Bachelor, Mr Anish Mikhail KAPOOR CBE, Sculptor. For services to Visual Arts., London'. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/...
  47. 47The Genesis Prize Foundation, press release via PR Newswire, 17 January 2018: 2017 Genesis Prize laureate Anish Kapoor; the USD 1 million prize directed to five refugee NGOs (IRC, Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees, HIAS, Help Refugees, Hillel International). prnewswire.com/news-releases/...
  48. 48GKToday, 'List of Padma Awards 2012' (TERTIARY: a reproduction of the Government of India list; entry 'Shri Anish Kapoor - Art - Sculpture - UK' under Padma Bhushan). gktoday.in/list-of-padma-awards-2012
  49. 49Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Lisson Gallery 1982', London, 19 May to 12 June. anishkapoor.com/291/...
  50. 50Anish Kapoor studio website, 'British Pavilion 1990', Venice Biennale, 27 May to 30 September; Void Field; A Wing at the Heart of Things. anishkapoor.com/294/...
  51. 51Anish Kapoor studio website, 'De Pont Foundation for Contemporary Art 1995', Tilburg, 12 March to 2 July. anishkapoor.com/300/...
  52. 52Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Hayward Gallery 1998', London, 30 April to 14 June. anishkapoor.com/305/...
  53. 53Anish Kapoor studio website, 'ICA Boston 2008', Past Present Future, 30 May to 7 September 2008. anishkapoor.com/276/...
  54. 54Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Deutsche Guggenheim 2008', Memory, 30 November 2008 to 1 February 2009. anishkapoor.com/669/...
  55. 55Anish Kapoor studio website, 'MAK Vienna 2009', Shooting into the Corner, 21 January to 19 April. anishkapoor.com/282/...
  56. 56Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Royal Academy of Arts 2009', 26 September to 11 December, London. anishkapoor.com/252/...
  57. 57Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Guggenheim Bilbao 2010', 16 March to 12 October. anishkapoor.com/666/...
  58. 58Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Kensington Gardens 2010-2011', Turning the World Upside Down, 28 September 2010 to 13 March 2011, London. anishkapoor.com/7294/...
  59. 59Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Mehboob Studios 2010-2011', Mumbai, 30 November to 16 February. anishkapoor.com/288/...
  60. 60Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Grand Palais 2011', Monumenta, Leviathan, 11 May to 23 June; work page: PVC, 33.6 x 99.89 x 72.23 m. anishkapoor.com/741/...
  61. 61Anish Kapoor studio website, 'De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art 2012-2013', Tilburg, 13 October to 13 January. anishkapoor.com/899/...
  62. 62Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art 2012-2013', Seoul, 25 October to 8 February. anishkapoor.com/906/...
  63. 63Anish Kapoor studio website, 'MCA Sydney 2012-2013', 20 December to 1 April, New South Wales, Australia. anishkapoor.com/922/...
  64. 64Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Martin-Gropius-Bau 2013', 'Kapoor in Berlin', 18 May to 24 November. anishkapoor.com/939/...
  65. 65Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Sakip Sabanci Museum 2013-2014', Istanbul, 10 September to 2 February 2014. anishkapoor.com/950/...
  66. 66Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2014-2015', 12 December 2014 to 29 March 2015; Descension. anishkapoor.com/1003/...
  67. 67Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Chateau de Versailles 2015', 9 June to 1 November: Shooting into the Corner, C-Curve, Sky Mirror (2013), Sectional Body preparing for Monadic Singularity, Dirty Corner (2011-2015), Descension. anishkapoor.com/1032/...
  68. 68Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Jewish Museum and Tolerance Centre 2015-2016', My Red Homeland, Moscow, 22 September 2015 to 17 January 2016. anishkapoor.com/1072/...
  69. 69Anish Kapoor studio website, 'MAST Foundation 2017-18', Places of Origin - Monuments for the 21st Century, Bologna, 12 October 2017 to 11 February 2018. anishkapoor.com/4992/...
  70. 70Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Serralves 2018', 'Works, Thoughts, Experiments', Porto, 6 July 2018 to 6 January 2019. anishkapoor.com/5206/...
  71. 71Anish Kapoor studio website, 'CAFA Art Museum / Imperial Ancestral Temple 2019-2020', Beijing: CAFA 25 October 2019 to 1 January 2020; Imperial Ancestral Temple 11 November to 28 December 2019. anishkapoor.com/6224/...
  72. 72Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Houghton Hall 2020', King's Lynn, Norfolk, 12 July to 1 November. anishkapoor.com/6706/...
  73. 73Anish Kapoor studio website, 'The Bangkok Art Biennale', 29 October 2020 to 30 April 2021; Push Pull II; Sky Mirror. anishkapoor.com/6747/...
  74. 74Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Modern Art Oxford 2021-2022', 'Painting', 2 October 2021 to 13 February 2022. anishkapoor.com/7020/...
  75. 75Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Palazzo Strozzi 2023-2024', 'Untrue Unreal', Florence, 7 October 2023 to 4 February 2024. anishkapoor.com/8253/...
  76. 76Anish Kapoor studio website, 'ARKEN Museum of Contemporary Art 2024', 'Unseen', Ishoj, Denmark, 11 April to 20 October. anishkapoor.com/8802/...
  77. 77Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Liverpool Cathedral 2024', Monadic Singularity, 10 August to 15 September; Church Times review quoted. anishkapoor.com/8617/...
  78. 78Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Jewish Museum 2025-2026', 'Early Works', New York, 24 October to 1 February 2026; carries the studio's call for provenance information on works dated 1970-1990. anishkapoor.com/9457/...
  79. 79Anish Kapoor studio website, 'SCAD Museum of Art', 'Earth Sky on Red Ground', Savannah, 9 February to 7 June (2026). anishkapoor.com/9839/...
  80. 80Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Palazzo Manfrin 2026', Venice, 6 May to 31 October, Fondamenta Venier, Cannaregio 342; ticketed; the Steidl 'Make New Space' book offered with a signed limited edition print 'Project for Malmo 1996' (2026, archival pigment inkjet, 16.5 x 22.5 cm, edition of 100) at EUR 300. anishkapoor.com/9811/...
  81. 81Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Orbit' project page: 'commissioned by the Greater London Authority from a shortlist of artist's proposals for a permanent tower for the Olympic Park. Construction started in November 2010 and was completed in May 2012'; sketchbook drawings and models. anishkapoor.com/332/...
  82. 82Anish Kapoor studio website, work page 'Ark Nova', 2013, PVC, 18 x 29 x 36 m; Lucerne Festival at Matsushima 2013, Sendai 2014, Fukushima 2015 and Tokyo 2017. anishkapoor.com/957/...
  83. 83Anish Kapoor studio website, work page 'Monte Sant'Angelo Subway Station', Naples, 2025: Universita entrance in weathering steel, 18.91 x 19.5 x 42.5 m; Traiano entrance in aluminium. anishkapoor.com/9398/...
  84. 84Anish Kapoor studio website, work page 'BUTCHERED', 2025, mixed media on canvas, 12 x 8 m, installed on a Shell gas platform in the North Sea on 13 August 2025 in collaboration with Greenpeace. anishkapoor.com/9380/...
  85. 85Anish Kapoor studio website, work page 'Frauenkirche Altarpiece', 1996, Frauenkirche, Dresden, Kilkenny limestone. anishkapoor.com/6061/...
  86. 86Anish Kapoor studio website, work page 'HOWL', 2020, PVC, 14.3 x 21.6 x 21.6 m. anishkapoor.com/6586/...
  87. 87Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Barbara Gladstone Gallery 1984', New York, 3 to 31 March. anishkapoor.com/292/...
  88. 88Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Galleria Continua 2003', San Gimignano, 31 May to 20 September. anishkapoor.com/677/...
  89. 89Anish Kapoor studio website, 'Kukje Gallery 2003', Seoul, 21 May to 29 June. anishkapoor.com/7850/...
  90. 90HENI News, 'The Alabaster Sculpture That Set Anish Kapoor's Auction Record', 29 January 2026: Untitled (2003), alabaster, USD 3.87m (GBP 1.95m) at Sotheby's London on 1 July 2008; the run of records from 'Three' (USD 37,500, Sotheby's New York, 3 May 1989) through Untitled (1999) at USD 2.84m (Sotheby's New York, 14 November 2007); Massimo Minini and the quarries. Figures are as HENI publishes them, which for these houses is the premium-inclusive price. heni.com/news/...
  91. 91HENI News, 'Anish Kapoor Work Sells for $644,200 ...', 17 October 2025: Untitled (2004), alabaster, 168 x 170 x 65 cm, GBP 483,000 at Bonhams London on 16 October 2025; last sold at Sotheby's New York on 17 November 2017 for USD 759,000; traded seven times before. heni.com/news/...
  92. 92Sotheby's, Contemporary Art Evening Auction, London, 1 July 2008, lot 6: Anish Kapoor, Untitled, alabaster, 197 x 192 x 58 cm, executed 2003; estimate GBP 1,000,000 to 1,500,000; provenance Lisson Gallery, London; Galerie Karsten Greve, St Moritz; private collection; condition 'very good'; the result is shown only to logged-in users. sothebys.com/en/...
  93. 93Sotheby's, Contemporary Art Evening Auction, London, 2018, lot 55: Anish Kapoor, Untitled, alabaster and pigment, 57.2 x 71.1 x 27.3 cm, executed 2005; estimate GBP 400,000 to 600,000; provenance Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, acquired by the owner in 2005; the catalogue note cites David Anfam's 2009 Phaidon monograph and dates the carved-void series from Shrine (1987) and Void Field (1989). sothebys.com/en/...
  94. 94Bonhams, 20th and 21st Century Art Evening Sale, London, New Bond Street, 16 October 2025, lot 13: Anish Kapoor, Untitled, alabaster, 168 x 170 x 65 cm, executed 2004; 'Sold for GBP 483,000 inc. premium'; lot symbol AR ('Goods subject to Artists Resale Right Additional Premium'); provenance Lisson Gallery, London; Galeria Carreras Mugica, Bilbao; private collection, Bilbao; Eykyn Maclean, London; private collection, US; Sotheby's New York, 17 November 2017, lot 510; private collection; exhibited on loan at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2007; the note names collections at MoMA, the National Gallery of Art Washington, the Fondazione Prada and Tate. bonhams.com/auction/...
  95. 95Phillips, Modern and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, London, 10 October 2024, lot 15: Anish Kapoor, Untitled, stainless steel and resin, 189.1 x 189.1 x 20.4 cm, signed and dated 2013 on the reverse; estimate GBP 450,000 to 650,000; 'Sold For GBP 533,400' (Phillips' published figure includes the buyer's premium). phillips.com/detail/...
  96. 96Phillips, Modern and Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Session, New York, 15 May 2024, lot 343: Anish Kapoor, Random Triangle Mirror, stainless steel and resin, 177.8 x 177.8 x 26.7 cm, signed and dated 2016; estimate USD 400,000 to 600,000; 'Sold For USD 673,100' (premium included). phillips.com/detail/...
  97. 97Phillips, 20th Century and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, London, 13 February 2020, lot 35: Anish Kapoor, Sky Mirror, stainless steel, 260 x 260 cm, executed 2014; estimate GBP 800,000 to 1,200,000; the lot page publishes no sale price; the catalogue essay lists the public Sky Mirror showings at Rockefeller Center 2006, Kensington Gardens 2010-11, the Hermitage 2010 and Versailles 2015. phillips.com/detail/...
  98. 98Saffronart, Winter Online Auction, 13-14 December 2023, lot 201: Anish Kapoor, Untitled, 1988, aquatint, 115 x 90 cm, signed and dated, Crown Point Press blind stamp, inscribed T.P.C, a trial proof from an edition of twenty; estimate INR 400,000 to 500,000; winning bid INR 720,000 (USD 8,675) inclusive of buyer's premium; published in 'View: Anish Kapoor', Crown Point Press, 1991. saffronart.com/auctions/...
  99. 99Crown Point Press, San Francisco, artist page 'Anish Kapoor': 1991 editions printed by Lawrence Hamlin with published 'fair market value' figures, among them Door (spit bite aquatint, edition 20, USD 7,500), Magnetic Field (drypoint, edition 15, USD 10,000), Mother As A Void (aquatint with hand-applied pigment, edition 9, USD 40,000) and Mother of Light (edition 15, USD 10,000); Kapoor quoted on Basho's pond. crownpoint.com/artists/...
  100. 100Hyperallergic, 'Anish Kapoor Gets Exclusive Rights to the World's Darkest Material', with update of 2 March (2016): Vantablack developed by Surrey NanoSystems in 2014 absorbs 99.965 per cent of light; Christian Furr quoted; Surrey NanoSystems' founder Ben Jensen quoted; update: 'Surrey NanoSystems has clarified that Anish Kapoor holds exclusive rights to Vantablack only in the field of art'. hyperallergic.com/anish-kapoor-gets-exclusive-rights-to-t...
  101. 101Benjamin Sutton, 'Anish Kapoor Sues the NRA for Showing Cloud Gate in Recruitment Video', Hyperallergic, 20 June 2018: the complaint filed in the US District Court in Chicago; USD 150,000 per infringement sought; Cloud Gate belongs to the City of Chicago, which commissioned it, while Kapoor registered the copyright with the US Copyright Office in January 2016; the 2015 Karamay copy mentioned. hyperallergic.com/anish-kapoor-sues-nra-the-bean-cloud-gate
  102. 102Henri Neuendorf, 'Anish Kapoor Declares Victory Over the NRA in a Settlement That Requires the Gun Group to Remove His Art From an Ad', Artnet News, 6 December 2018: out-of-court settlement; the NRA agreed to remove the image; Kapoor's full statement, naming the pro bono legal teams. news.artnet.com/art-world/...
  103. 103Adrienne Couraud, 'Whose Rights? Anish Kapoor's Dirty Corner Exposes A Battle Between Artists' Moral Rights and The Rights of the Public', Center for Art Law, 30 August 2016: the Versailles programme under Catherine Pegard; the complaint by councillor Fabien Bougle; the Tribunal Administratif de Versailles order of September 2015 to cover the antisemitic graffiti, with the tribunal's statement quoted; Kapoor's reaction from Moscow; the gold-leaf covering. itsartlaw.org/art-law/...
  104. 104Chateau de Versailles online shop, 'Kapoor Versailles' exhibition catalogue (RMN and Chateau de Versailles, 2015, ISBN 9782711862641): 'From 9 June to 1 November 2015, the Palace of Versailles welcomes the English artist Anish Kapoor'; four works on the Grand Perspective, one in the Star Grove, Shooting into the Corner in the Jeu de Paume. boutique-chateauversailles.fr/en/...
  105. 105Sotheby's, May 2013 Contemporary Evening, New York, 14 May 2013, lot 15: Anish Kapoor, Untitled, alabaster, 109 x 66 x 56 cm, executed 1997; condition report: 'Chalky areas scattered on the outside of the work, both in the rough-hewn sides and the polished back, are inherent to the stone and the working process', two minute nicks to the inner rim and a 1-inch scratch with small nicks on the face. sothebys.com/en/...
Cite this pageIconotheca, “Anish Kapoor”, The Provenance Record, iconotheca.com/artists/anish-kapoor/, version of .

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