Quick Facts
Biography
Royden Rabinowitch, OC (born March 6, 1943) is a Canadian sculptor who exhibits internationally.
Rabinowitch was born in Toronto, Ontario, and is the cerebral, reclusive twin brother of sculptor David Rabinowitch. He lives in Ghent, Cambridge, U.K. and Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.,
Rabinowitch was elected Visiting Associate 1983/84, Visiting Fellow 1984/85 and Life Member 1986 of Clare Hall, Cambridge University, UK. In 2002, he was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada (OC).
Royden Rabinowitch began his career in Toronto. His first solo show in New York was in 1978 at the John Weber Gallery. His first European retrospective at the Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, in 1985 was curated by Johannes Cladders. He has shown widely in Europe including solo shows at Wiener Secession, Vienna and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and was represented by Peter Pakesch in Vienna. Because he saw the art scene as mostly compromised by the ethos of advertising, he largely retreated to Cambridge, only occasionally showing with curators such as Wiesław Borowski, Rudi Fuchs, Jan Hoet and Harald Szeemann.
Works by Royden Rabinowitch are in some of the most prestigious museum collections worldwide including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Kunsthaus Zürich; Museum of modern and contemporary art, Geneva; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Rupf Foundation, Kunstmuseum Bern; Watari Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
In the 1980s Rabinowitch started to construct works that were seen, by chance, to relate to particular public places. These constructions listed chronologically are: Judgment on the Keplerian Revolution (Furkapasshöhe, Swiss Alps), Newton on Top of Aristotle (Sarabhai Retreat, Ahmedabad, India), Éloges de Fontenelle (Toronto Convention Centre), Leibniz and Newton (Neue Nationalgalerie Platz, Berlin), Tyco and Jepp (Kornwestheim Bahnhof), Judgment on Newton’s Principle of Inertia (John’s Castle, Limerick), Galileo’s Judgment on Ptolemy and Copernicus (WATARI-UM, Tokyo), Judgment on the Copernican Revolution (chosen by Berlin Mitte for Leipziger Platz), Bell for Kepler (Sesquicentennial Plaza, Waterloo, Ontario).
In 2012, Rabinowitch was honored in Canada with a Governor General’s Award for excellence in visual and media arts. Rabinowitch was recognized for his nearly-50-year career as a sculptor.
In late 2014, the largest private collection of Royden Rabinowitch's work, which is situated in Ghent, will be opened to the public.