The Life of Steve McQueen

Steve McQueen is a British filmmaker and artist. McQueen was born on October 9, 1969 in Ealing, a district in West London. His parents are both Caribbean immigrants, his mother from Trinidad and his father from Grenada. McQueen attended Drayton Manor High School in Ealing. McQueen has reflected on the racist policies that relegated him and other students with learning challenges (McQueen was dyslexic) to an academic track for those supposedly destined for manual labor. “At 13 years old, you are marked, you are dead, that’s your future,” McQueen said. Nevertheless, he found his love and skill for visual arts, which granted him access to more educational opportunities. McQueen attended Chelsea College of Art and then Goldsmiths College at the University of London, which he graduated from in 1993. At Goldsmiths, McQueen also began to explore his passion for film. That spark led him to the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Dissatisfied with the stiff approach to filmmaking, McQueen left Tisch after three months. McQueen’s films have explored a wide range of issues, from the 1981 Irish hunger strike to American slavery to the lives of Caribbean immigrants in London. McQueen has won numerous awards for his art and filmmaking, including the Turner Prize in 1999 for Deadpan, OBE and CBE medals, the 2008 Caméra d’Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival for Hunger, and an Academy Award for Best Picture at the 2014 Oscars for 12 Years a Slave. McQueen’s most recent work, Small Axe, is an anthology film series depicting Black British life from the 1960s to the 1980s. McQueen lives in Amsterdam with his wife and two children.