Tony Cragg is one of Britain's most significant living artists. He has been a central figure in international sculpture since 1988, when he both won the Turner Prize and represented Britain at the Venice Biennale.
In his sculptures, he constantly explores the properties of materials and tests their limits. Cragg strives to capture the feel, significance, and beauty of the material, as well as the rational structure that shapes its expression beyond its modern, utilitarian functions. In bronze or stainless steel, the forms convey a sense of metal in transformation, on the edge between solid and liquid form.
"There is an idea that sculpture is static, or perhaps even dead, but I am completely against that," Cragg said in an interview in 2007. "I'm not a religious person – I'm an absolute materialist – and for me material is exciting and ultimately sublime. When I'm involved in making sculpture, I'm looking for a system of belief or ethics in the material. I want that material to have a dynamic, to push and move and grow,"

A recurring method in Cragg's work is to develop sculptures in series or "families," where new variations emerge from a common idea. "Masks" is the title of a series of sculptures in stone, bronze, and wood that were created between 2021 and 2024. The circular form alludes to a face or head, a motif that often recurs in Cragg's sculptures. Upon closer inspection, however, the form slips back towards abstraction. Rather than depicting nature or something already existing in the world, Cragg seeks through his sculptures to discover what ideas and emotions different materials and forms can evoke.

Tony Cragg lives and works in Wuppertal, Germany. He also has a summer studio on the island of Tjörn on the Swedish west coast. In 2005, the Cragg Foundation was established, which operates the 25-hectare sculpture park near Wuppertal with around 40 outdoor sculptures by both Cragg and other artists such as Henry Moore, Thomas Schütte, and Eva Hild. Public works in Sweden include the large bronze sculpture "Points of View" in Malmö, inaugurated in 2017. The work is known for its undulating forms that can be likened to profiles of faces. In Uppsala, there is the sculpture "Chain of Events" from 2010.

Cragg has held a professorship at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France (1999-2009) and at the Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf, Germany (2009 to present). He has exhibited at the world's most prestigious and important museums, and his works are in many collections, including Tate London, MoMA New York, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and many more. In Sweden, GSA Gallery (formerly Andersson/Sandström) has held several solo exhibitions with Tony Cragg.