Anish Kapoor was born on March 12, 1954, in Mumbay, India. He moved to England when he was 19-years-old to attend the Hornsey College of Art in London from 1973–77, followed by the Chelsea School of Art in 1977–78. After completing his studies, he taught at Wolverhampton Polytechnic in 1979. The following year, Kapoor was given his first solo show in Paris, held at the studio of Patrice Alexandre. This marked the beginning of his intense exhibition activity. In the early 1980s his sculptural oeuvre revolved around the multiplicity of new forms, in a continuous dialogue between two-and three-dimensionality. This would make him one of the most exemplary members of New British Sculpture, a term applied to the new sculpture scene in England, including artists such as Tony Cragg and Antony Gormley.

Throughout the 1980s, in a continuous investigation of the dialectic of opposites, the artist executed sculptures that were partially abstract and completely coated in pure pigment. In the 1990s, his works became increasingly monumental in scale and often centered on the idea of emptyness, rendered tangible through a cavity that is filled or by material that is hollowed out. After participating in the 44th Venice Biennale in 1990, where he won the Premio Duemila, and upon winning the Turner Prize in 1991, Kapoor became internationally famous. He began exhibiting world-wide and to concentrate on private and public commissions.

In 2004, Kapoor unveiled Cloud Gate, a commissioned work for Chicago’s Millennium Park. The work consists of a monumental elliptical arc made of reflective stainless steel. Kapoor is said to have derived his inspiration for the piece from liquid mercury. Significant exhibitions of his work have been held at the Fondazione Prada in Milan, in 1995; the Hayward Gallery in London, in 1998; the Piazza del Plebiscito in Naples, in 1999; the National Archaeology Museum in Naples, in 2003; the Shiraishi Contemporary Art in Tokyo, in 2005; and the Gladstone Gallery on New York, in 2007. Anish Kapoor lives and works in London.