Michael Craig-Martin, one of the most influential artists and teachers of his generation, was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1941 and educated in the United States where he studied at Yale University. He returned to Europe in the mid-1960s and was a key figure in the first generation of British conceptual artists. In 1980, he taught at Goldsmiths College in London as a professor, and was a major contribution to the young British artist such as Damien Hirst and others, who belongs to the YBA.  Craig-Martin has developed a distinctive style over the past 50 years through the compilation of a whole vocabulary of objects realised through a variety of media including painting, sculpture, drawing, printing and animations. Craig-Martin has explored the aesthetic and linguistic characteristics that emerged as everyday objects of art historians, designers, and icons through a variety of media including painting, sculpture, prints, and recently computer animation for history.  Craig-Martin received the British Empire Medal from the British royal Hun Lyrics in 2001. His work is held in numerous museum collections around the world including Tate, London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid;  Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The Berardo Collection, Lisbon; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Harvard University Art Museums, Massachusetts; Museum of Modern Art, New York.