What is Chris Ofili famous for?

Chris Ofili is famous for his art. His earliest paintings and prints were some of his most radical, breaking boundaries and setting the tone for a lifetime of work that unapologetically explores Black identity, racism, religion and pop culture. Ofili was a member of the Young British Artists — a collective of London-based artists that included Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and others who have never shied from using non-traditional materials or tackling controversial subject matter. He found the spotlight in the late 1990s when then-New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani publicly criticized the artist’s monumental depiction of an eroticized Black Madonna that featured elephant dung and images of female genitalia. So it was that Ofili became, for a time, best known for his elephant dung paintings. Then, in 1998, at the age of 30, Ofili won the coveted Turner Prize — he was the first Black artist to do so — and soon afterward, in 2003, he was selected to exhibit at the 50th Venice Biennale. Find a variety of Chris Ofili art on 1stDibs.