Rachel Whiteread

Rachel Whiteread was born in 1963 in London, where she lives and works. Whiteread studied painting at Brighton Polytechnic and sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art in the 1980s.

In Whiteread’s sculptures and drawings, everyday settings, objects, and surfaces are transformed into ghostly replicas that are eerily familiar. Through casting, she frees her subject matter—from beds, tables, and boxes to water towers and entire houses—from practical use, suggesting a new permanence, imbued with memory.

Selected solo exhibitions include Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood, London (2017); Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, Italy (2014); Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Culture Center, Los Angeles (2010); Tate Modern, London (2005) and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2001). Group exhibitions include Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2020); ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Denmark (2019-2020); Tate Britain, London (2019) and San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose (2018). She has also participated in the 47th Venice biennale (1997).

Whiteread has been honored with a number of grants including Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (DBE) (2019); International Medal of Arts, U.S. Department of State, Washington (2017) and Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) (2006).

Her work can be found in the collections of Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Centre George Pompidou, Paris; Fundacion “la Caixa”, Barcelona; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern, London and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.