Curtis Anderson was born in 1956 in the American Midwest and raised in the Pacific Northwest. Educated in New York City, he received his Bachelor of Fine Art from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 1979.
In 1980 Anderson co-founded The Curzon Studio in New York which operated until 1985. A fabrication studio for the production of architectural models, furniture, picture frames and sculpture with an A-List client roster: Robert Wilson, Scott Burton, Mary Miss, Michael Graves, Andy Warhol, Jed Johnson, Robert Mapplethorpe, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Meier, Philip Taaffe, Donald Baechler, James Brown, Izhar Patkin and many more.
In 1984 Anderson and Russell Busch founded Kedleston Ink in order to purchase real estate near the Shawangunk climbing cliffs in Upstate New York. The Ink refers to the primary function of this undertaking - the publishing of print editions.
Kedleston refers to the country seat of the family of George Nathanial Curzon, first Viceroy of India and an Oxford Don, to which he retired after a nervous breakdown.
Anderson moved to Cologne in 1985. In that year he had his first exhibitions in his new home city. „Kölner Herbstsalon“ curated by Sigfried Gohr took place at the Museum Ludwig. Then came his first solo exhibition in a commercial gallery, in the „Galerie und Lager Rudolf Zwirner“ curated by Daniel Buchholz.
In 1986 Anderson had his first solo exhibition in an institution, Galerie t’Venster in Rotterdam, which was curated by Gosse Oosterhof.
Since 1985 Anderson has had dozens of solo exhibitions on three continents.
In New York at Baron/Boisanté, the Paul Kasmin Gallery and the Celeste Bartos Forum in the New York Public Library. In Boston at the Ars Libri space curated by Mario Diacono. In Cologne with Jule Kewenig in Haus Bitz, Aurel Scheibler and Brigitte Schenk, as well as the Institut Français and the Kunststation Sankt Peter. In Munich with Six Friedrich. In Amsterdam with De Praktijk, Van Krimpen Tekeningen and Restaurant Christophé. In Spain with Galeria Leyendecker in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and with Galeria Jule Kewenig in Palma de Mallorca. He has shown several times with Erika and Otto Friedrich in Bern, Switzerland. He has exhibited in two German castles, creating a floating sculpture for the moat of Schloss Wendlinghausen in Dörentrup and filling the octagonal 18th Century garden pavilion of Schloss Molsberg with hinged glass paintings. In Sydney he has shown with the Boutwell Draper Gallery.
Among the many venues for group exhibitions including Anderson’s work are the Soho Guggenheim NY, the Drawing Center NY, the Peggy Guggenehim Collection in Venice, Massimo Audiello Gallery NY, Daniel Newburg Gallery NY, Andrea Rosen Gallery NY, Monika Sprüth Galerie Cologne, The Living Room Amsterdam, Van Krimpen Amsterdam, the ICA Boston, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Spiral Museum in Tokyo and the Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede.
Public collections holding Anderson’s work are the New York Public Library Print Collection, the Toledo Art Museum, the Library of Congress, Sammlung Hoffmann Berlin and the Kupferstichkabinett Dresden.
From 1993 to 1995 Anderson was a founding publisher and editor of Tinaia 9 with offices in Greve / Chianti, Cologne and New York.
From 1995 to 2004 Anderson was a tutor in the Dutch Art Institute in Enschede, the Netherlands. An MFA granting program offering „Postgraduate Research in Interdisciplinary Media“.
Anderson’s work has been commented upon in ARTFORUM, Flash Art, Kunstforum and Museum Journal (Netherlands).
Monographs are Dore Ashton’s „Thoughts of a Bemused Tourist / Zur Arbeit von Curtis Anderson“ Fölbach Verlag Koblenz 1999, Marcus Steinweg’s „Danse Bipolaire“ Salon Verlag Cologne 2004, „LIMEN“ from 2013 and Mark von Schlegell’s „CURTIS ANDERSON AXIS MUNDI“ 2014, both from the Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne.