Item NMC/0609 - Dining chair

Born in Helsby, Cheshire. Sculptor and craftsman in wood, who worked mainly on commission. He studied at Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham and Glasgow School of Art, graduating in sculpture. Stead won a travelling scholarship in 1975 and seven years later a Scottish Development Agency Crafts Fellowship. Because of his specially designed furniture and activities such as tree replanting and the establishment of a community plantation on the Scottish Borders, Stead was the subject of several television films. Showed at such venues as Scottish Craft Centre and Collins Gallery in Glasgow; also widely on the continent and in America; and had first sculpture show at Compass Gallery, Glasgow, in 1990, another at Ancrum Gallery, Ancrum, 1992. Giles Sutherland collaborated with Stead to product Explorations in Wood: the furniture and sculpture of Tim Stead, published in 1993. Stead's later commissions included The Peephole, at Museum of Modern Art Glasgow, 1996, which allows the viewer to participate in the artwork, and the Millennium Clock, Royal Museum, Edinburgh.