Marc Quinn

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Quinn's sculpture in Carrara marble, Alison Lapper Pregnant (2005), for The Fourth Plinth of Trafalgar Square.

Quinn's bronze sculpture: The Big Bang Pop

Marc Quinn (born 1964) is a British artist, best known for Alison Lapper Pregnant, a statue of Alison Lapper currently installed on the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square, and Self, a sculpture of his own head made from his own frozen blood. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs).

Quinn was born in London. He studied history and the history of art at Cambridge University (attending Robinson College), and worked as an assistant to the sculptor Barry Flanagan.

He was not represented in the 1988 Damien Hirst-curated Freeze exhibition which brought the YBAs together for the first time (although he did at one time share a flat with Hirst). Quinn emerged in the early 1990s. He was one of the first artists represented by Jay Jopling, and was exhibited in Charles Saatchi's defining Sensation exhibition of 1997, which gave establishment endorsement to the movement.

Quinn's signature piece in the art world is Self (1991, recast 1996), a sculpture of the artist's head made from 4.5 litres (9.5 US pints) of his own frozen blood taken from his body over a period of five months.

Self, like many other pieces by the YBAs, was bought by Charles Saatchi (in 1991 for a reputed £13,000). The press reported in 2002 that the sculpture had been destroyed by builders employed to expand the kitchen for Saatchi's partner, the celebrity chef Nigella Lawson, when they unplugged the freezer in which it was being stored (it has to be kept at -12C/10F). This would seem to have been unfounded, however, as the piece was exhibited intact by Saatchi when he opened his new gallery in London in 2003. In April, 2005, Self was sold to a US collector £1.5m. [1]

As well as modelling himself, Quinn has made a series of sculptures of people either born with limbs missing or who have had them amputated. His portrait of John Sulston, who worked on the Human Genome Project, is in the National Portrait Gallery. It consists of bacteria containing Sulston's DNA in agar jelly.

Since 2005 Quinn has become known to the general public for his sculpture of Alison Lapper, which is on prominent display on a plinth in Trafalgar Square in front of the National Gallery.

In April 2006, Sphinx, a sculpture of Kate Moss by Quinn was revealed [2]. The sculpture shows Moss in a yoga position with her ankles and arms wrapped behind her ears.

He is married to author Georgia Byng and has two children.