PARIS.- Thaddaeus Ropac announces the passing of Robert Wilson (1941–2025), one of the greatest artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Since the late 1960s, his productions have decisively shaped the contemporary aesthetics of theatre and opera. Through his signature use of light, innovations in movement and the classical rigour of his designs, the force and originality of his vision will continue to leave a lasting impact across artistic media.

Bob will be remembered as a visionary across a wide variety of artistic disciplines, as an acclaimed director, stage architect, designer, choreographer, curator and visual artist. I’m grateful to have collaborated with him for numerous exhibitions in our galleries in Salzburg and Paris over the past 30 years, showing his drawings, sculptures, installations and video portraits. — Thaddaeus Ropac

Born in 1941 in Waco, Texas, Wilson studied at the University of Texas and the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He founded the New York-based performance collective ‘The Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds’ in the mid-1960s and developed his first signature works, including Deafman Glance (1970) and A Letter for Queen Victoria (1974–75). With Philip Glass, he wrote the seminal opera Einstein on the Beach (1976). In 1998, the renowned production of Bluebeard’s Castle & Expectation, with Jessye Norman in the role of the Woman, premiered at the Salzburg Festival. Wilson’s artistic collaborators include many writers and musicians such as Heiner Müller, Tom Waits, Susan Sontag, Laurie Anderson, William Burroughs, Lou Reed and Anna Calvi. He has also left his imprint on masterworks such as Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, Brecht/Weill’s Threepenny Opera, Debussy’s Pelléas et Melisande, Goethe’s Faust, Homer’s Odyssey, Jean de la Fontaine’s Fables, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Verdi’s La Traviata and Sophocles’ Oedipus.

Wilson’s drawings, paintings and sculptures have been presented in hundreds of solo and group exhibitions and are in private collections and museums internationally. He has been honoured with numerous awards for excellence, including a Pulitzer Prize nomination (1986), two Premio Ubu awards (1994 and 1996), the Golden Lion at the 45th Venice Biennale (1993) and an Olivier Award (2013). He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the German Academy of the Arts, as well as holding eight honorary doctorates. France pronounced him Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (2003) and Officier de la Légion d’Honneur (2014), while Germany awarded him the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit (2014).

Wilson was the founder and artistic director of The Watermill Center, a laboratory for the arts in Water Mill, New York.