Matthew Collings
Matthew Collings is an iconic British art critic, writer, broadcaster, and artist. He began his career at Artscribe, where he became Editor from 1983 to 1987 and received a Turner Prize commendation for his work. He then moved into television, working as a producer and presenter on the BBC The Late Show from 1989 to 1995. In the early 1990s he brought Martin Kippenberger into the BBC studios to create an installation. He gave Jeff Koons his first sympathetic exposure on British TV, and Damien Hirst was also introduced for the first time to the UK TV audience by Collings.
He went on to present documentary films for the BBC on individual artists as well as broader historical subjects. After leaving the BBC, Collings wrote ‘Blimey! From Bohemia to Britpop: The London Artworld from Francis Bacon to Damien Hirst,’ which chronicled the rise of the Young British Art (YBA) movement. Published in 1997 by 21, a new company co-founded by David Bowie, ‘Blimey!’ was described by Artforum magazine as “…one of the best-selling contemporary-art books ever. The following year, Collings wrote and presented the Channel 4 TV series This is Modern Art, which won him a Bafta (2000) among other awards.
In 2007 he wrote and presented the Channel 4 TV series This is Civilisation and in 2009 appeared on the BBC2 programme ‘School of Saatchi’, a reality TV show for newly trained UK artists.
Since 2015, Collings has been the regular art critic for the Evening Standard, replacing Brian Sewell, who died that year.
Collings has enjoyed great success as part of the artist duo Biggs & Collings (with his wife Emma) and maintains his own studio practice. Collings’ ongoing series of drawings of an “alternative art history,” begun in 2020, has been a phenomenal success, with many thousands sold on Instagram as part of Artist Support Pledge.
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