Artist
Jeff Koons was born in York, Pennsylvania in 1955. He earned a B.F.A degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He lives and works in New York City.
Since his first solo exhibition in 1980, his work has been shown in major galleries and institutions throughout the world. His work was the subject of a major exhibition organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, “Jeff Koons: A Retrospective” (June – October 2014), which traveled to the Centre Pompidou, Paris (November 2014 – April 2015) and the Guggenheim, Bilbao (June – September 2015). Recent exhibitions include “Appearance Stripped Bare: "Desire and Object in the Work of Marcel Duchamp and Jeff Koons, Even"; "Jeff Koons: At the Ashmolean" and "Jeff Koons Mucem". Works from the Pinault Collection.” “Jeff Koons. Shine” was recently on view at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence (October 2021 – January 2022).
Mr. Koons is widely known for his iconic “Rabbit” and “Balloon Dog” sculptures as well as the monumental floral sculpture “Puppy” (1992), shown at the Rockefeller Center in New York and permanently installed at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Another floral sculpture, “Split-Rocker” (2000), previously installed at the Palais des Papes in Avignon, the Château de Versailles and Fondation Beyeler in Basel, was most recently on view at Rockefeller Center in 2014.
Mr. Koons has received numerous awards and honors in recognition of his cultural achievements. Notably, he received the Governor’s Awards for the Arts “Distinguished Arts Award” from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts; President Jacques Chirac promoted him to officier de la Legion d’Honneur; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton honored him with the State Department’s Medal of the Arts for his outstanding commitment to the Art in Embassies Program and international cultural exchange; and Consul General Ragini Gupta presented him with the U.S. Consulate General’s Award for Cultural Diplomacy in Florence. In 2017, he was named the inaugural artist in residence at Columbia University’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute and became an honorary member of University of Oxford's Edgar Wind Society for outstanding contribution to visual culture.
Mr. Koons has been a board member to the International Center for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC) since 2002. He also co-founded the Koons Family Institute on International Law and Policy with ICMEC, with the purpose of combating the global issues of child abduction and exploitation and to protect the world’s children.
