Artist Profile

Michael Madden Heizer was born in Berkeley, California in 1944.  Heizer was exposed to numerous influences during his youth, primarily his father's archaeological interests and his grandfather’s geological ones.  In the early 1960s, Heizer briefly attended the San Francisco Art Institute, soon moved to New York, which he found too constraining for his interest in creating earthworks, and quickly decided to move back west.  Working in the desert allowed Heizer to create works that reached an unprecedented size, culminating in what is perhaps his most famous work, Double Negative.  The artist has collaborated with many of the early earth artists including Robert Smithson.  Heizer continues to work, despite diagnosis of a neurological disorder which has reduced his ability to use his hands, and has produced small-scale sculptures and paintings for solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the Whitney Museum of American Art.