David Cregeen’s biography, net worth, fact, career, awards and life story

David Cregeen is a British sculptor who, has had his principal home and studio for many years in Southern Turkey. Early in his career the American art collector Arthur M. Sackler commissioned him to undertake a sculptural project called ‘ Faces in History’, and for which amongst the other portrait heads sculpted from life are Queen Elizabeth II as head of The Commonwealth, Pope John Paul II, President Nelson Mandela, President Gorbachev and Baroness Thatcher. His portrait and figure works have elements of expressionism and abstraction, and reflect the early influence of his training in Edinburgh and Florence.

Early life and education

David Cregeen is a member of an academic and artistic family of Manx, Scottish and English descent. His paternal uncle was the Scottish Oral Historian Eric R. Cregeen, his aunt the archaeologist and playwright Shiela Cregeen while his maternal grandmother, Madeleine Howells, a painter, was the first cousin of Dr Herbert Howells the English composer of sacred music.

The eldest of 5 children his father William Allan Cregeen FRIC was a forensic scientist and his mother Joan Madeleine Cregeen MBE, he was educated in England, Canada and latterly Scotland where he attended Dollar Academy going on to Edinburgh University where he graduated with an Honours Degree in Sociology and Social Anthropology before completing a degree as Master of Philosophy. Concurrent with this he undertook a special course in sculpture and Edinburgh College of Art and completed both in 1976 when he moved to Florence to further his technique in sculpture and drawing at the Academia de Belle Arti and The Scoulo Libera del Nuodo.

Works

In 1985, he took part in Humanism in contemporary British Sculpture. Since 1989 while working and exhibiting internationally Cregeen has made his home and principle studio in Southern Turkey; a source of much inspiration and reflected in the internationally touring exhibition, Eternal Image: A Journey in Anatolia.
Among many other portrait sculptures he has completed from life are busts of the late Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, King Michael of Romania, the Prince of Wales, his wife the Duchess of Cornwall, and leading Turkish philanthropist and business man, Sakip Sabanci. In 2006 he travelled to Nigeria to sculpt President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Cregeen’s work is found in many public and private collections including Royal Collection, The National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC, The Arthur M Sackler Collection New York, The Sakip Sabanci Museum Istanbul, The Universities of Edinburgh, Harvard University and Bucharest University, Barclays Bank PLC, PNB Paribas, Akbank and Garanti bank.

Figure sculpture

• Rockman

• Goat Woman 1989

• Olive Woman

• Cornucopia

• Chirali

• Aspendos 1998

Portrait sculpture

• Queen Elizabeth II

• King Michael of Romania

• Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother

• President Nelson Mandela

• Bust of Lady Thatcher – bronze- 2006

• Sakıp Sabancı

Selected exhibitions

• 1980 The Theatre Royal, Glasgow
• 1981 The Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester
• 1981 The Edinburgh International Festival of The Arts
• 1982 The Riverside Studios, London
• 1993 The Kusav Foundation, Istanbul
• 1995 The McHardy Sculpture Company, London
• 1996 Spectrum House, London
• 2000 Manannan Festival of The Arts, Isle of Man
• 2000 PNP Paribas, Geneva, Switzerland
• 2001 McHardy Sculpture Company, London
• 2002 Manx National Museum, Douglas Isle of Man. 2003 Isle of Man Business Centre. In Aid of The Red Cross
• 2004 Maison Latine Americane, Monaco
• 2006 Royal Commonwealth Society. London
• 2007 The Royal Geographical Society. London