Richard Long was born in Bristol in 1945. He studied at the West of England College of Art, Bristol (1962-66) and at St Martin's School of Art, London (1966-68).
As early as 1994 Long made his first work involving landscape, which had developed by 1967 towards using distance, in the form of long walks, and space - the open air, aspects of the landscape with his subtle intervention. The element of time became important as he made sculptures by walking, hitch-hiking or bicycling on a predetermined route which might be described as a line or circle on a map. The records of these walks exist as maps, photographs and short, descriptive texts. He has travelled the world making his work, in the Americas, Europe, Africa, Nepal, Australia and Japan a solitary occupation, on occasions involving great hardship and discomfort.
Long's work is highly regarded and he has held many significant one-man exhibitions throughout the world. In 1976 he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale with an installation in the British Pavilion made of marble selected from an Italian quarry.
His practice of making installations in poetic harmony with the buildings in which they are placed has led Long to work in such diverse venues as the Henry Moore Studios at Dean Clough, Halifax, with pieces of coal arranged in a dense black circle, and in 1994, the Sao Paulo Biennial, Brazil, where he used mud from the Amazon splashed in controlled sweeps on the gallery surfaces. In 1989 he was the winner of the Turner Prize.
Richard Long lives in Bristol and continues to travel the world to make his work.