Robert Wilson

Born in Waco, Texas, Wilson is among the world’s foremost theater and visual artists. His works for the stage unconventionally integrate a wide variety of artistic media, including dance, movement, lighting, sculpture, music, and text. His images are aesthetically striking and emotionally charged, and his productions have earned the acclaim of audiences and critics worldwide.

After being educated at the University of Texas and Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, Wilson founded the New York-based performance collective “The Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds” in the mid-1960s and developed his first signature works, including “Deafman Glance” (1970) and “A Letter for Queen Victoria” (1974-1975).

Together with Philip Glass, they wrote the seminal opera Einstein on the Beach (1976). Wilson’s artistic collaborators include many writers and musicians, such as Heiner Müller, Tom Waits, Susan Sontag, Laurie Anderson, William Burroughs, Lou Reed, Jessye Norman, and Anna Calvi. He has also left his imprint on masterworks such as Samuel Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape,” Bertold Brecht and Kurt Weill’s “Threepenny Opera,” Claude Debussy’s “Pelléas et Mélisande,” Goethe’s “Faust,” Homer’s “Odyssey,” Jean de la Fontaine’s “Fables,” Giacomo Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly,” Giuseppe Verdi’s “La Traviata,” and several of Shakespeare’s works.

Wilson's drawings, paintings, and sculptures have been presented in hundreds of international solo and group showings, and his works are held in private collections and museums worldwide.

Wilson has been honored with numerous awards for excellence, including a Pulitzer Prize nomination, two Premio Ubu awards, the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale, and an Olivier Award. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the German Academy of the Arts, and holds 8 Honorary Doctorate degrees. He is a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters and Officer of the Legion of Honor in France, bearer of the German Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit, and laureate of the 2023 Praemium Imperiale.

Wilson is the founder and Artistic Director of The Watermill Center, a laboratory for the Arts in Water Mill, New York.