Peter Hide

Peter Hide
Born	1944 (age 72–73) Carshalton, Surrey, UK
Nationality	British
Education	Croydon College of Art, Saint Martin's School of Art
Known for	Sculpture
Notable work	"Oddball", "The Conquest of Happiness"
Movement	Modern art

Peter Nicholas Hide (born December 15, 1944, Carshalton, Surrey) is an English born abstract sculptor. A one-time pupil of Sir Anthony Caro, Hide is best known for upright, large-scale welded sculptures made of heavy, rusted industrial scrap steel.

Peter Hide works in the Modernist assembled sculpture tradition begun by Pablo Picasso and continued by David Smith and Anthony Caro, but with an emphasis on weight and pressure unlike his artistic forebears. Like his mentor Caro, Hide's sculptures forsake the plinth, but against Caro's open weightlessness, Hide reclaims mass and the monolith, connecting his work to inspirational sources in Auguste Rodin and Brâncuși. "I think a lot of sculptors," Hide says, "especially those who were taught by Tony Caro, decided deliberately to move as far away as possible so as not to be seen as his disciples. The problem is that if you do that you move away from extremely fertile territory.

Peter Hide was born to Gordon Walter Hide and Clarice Marna Ashcroft in 1944, the first of their four children. For two years, Hide attended Wallington Independent Grammar School, and in 1960 began a course in market gardening, with plans to attend horticultural college. A year later, Hide gave up his gardening course, and enrolled full-time as a student at Croydon College of Art. From 1964 - 1967, Hide studied sculpture under Anthony Caro at St. Martin's School of Art, and attracted the attention of the critic Clement Greenberg. After studying with Caro, and working part-time for him as an assistant, Hide set up studio at Stockwell Depot in 1967, where he went on to organize a series of important exhibitions throughout the 70s, sponsored by the Arts Council of Great Britain. From 1971-78, Hide taught sculpture at Saint Martin's.

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