Artist, designer and publisher, son of the artist Joe Tilson. He was at Chelsea School of Art, 1976–9, then at the Royal College of Art, 1980–3. His production of the magazine Cipher while at the College continued an interest begun at school, and it presaged other striking little magazines and publications notable for their use of colour. Tilson also designed clothes. His art works, drawing on the legacy of Pop Art and employing such objects as urban junk, began to be exhibited in the early 1980s at key shows such as the Paris Biennale, 1983. Three years later Tilson showed with Nigel Greenwood, who remained his dealer, and in 1988 he appeared in New Forms in Visual Poetry at Guggenheim Museum, in New York, and in Exhibition Road, at Royal College of Art.