Director, Set and Lighting Designer 

[Robert Wilson is] a towering figure in the world of experimental theater and an explorer in the uses of time and space on stage. —The New York Times

Born in Waco, Texas, Wilson is one of the world’s foremost theatre and visual artists. His works for the stage unconventionally integrate a wide variety of artistic media, including dance, movement, lighting, sculpture, music, and text. His images are aesthetically striking and emotionally charged, and his productions have earned the acclaim of audiences and critics worldwide.

After studying at the University of Texas and Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, Wilson 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 (1974-1975). With Philip Glass he wrote the seminal opera Einstein on the Beach (1976).

Wilson’s artistic collaborators span a wide range of writers and musicians, including Heiner Müller, Tom Waits, Susan Sontag, Laurie Anderson, William Burroughs, Lou Reed, Jessye Norman, and Anna Calvi. His creative influence also extends to masterworks such as Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, Brecht and 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 several of Shakespeare’s plays.

Wilson's drawings, paintings, and sculptures have been exhibited worldwide in hundreds of solo and group shows, and his works are held in both private collections and museums across the globe.

Wilson has been honoured with numerous awards for excellence, including a Pulitzer Prize nomination, two Premio Ubu awards, the Golden Lion of Venice Biennale, and an Olivier Award. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the German Academy of the Arts, and he holds eight honorary doctorates. He is a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters and an Officer of the Legion of Honour in France, a recipient of the German Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit, and a laureate of the 2023 Praemium Imperiale.

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