**Biographies keeps artist CVs in one place, so a line is updated once and is correct everywhere it appears — in your documents and on your website. This article describes WrkLst 10.**

## Starting a biography

Open **Biographies**, find the artist with **Search artists** and choose **Start a biography** if none exists yet. Every artist has two parts: a **Short paragraph bio** — a few sentences used in shared documents and on your website — and a structured CV made of categories and lines.

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![Biographies: 1 Search artists · 2 Start a biography](https://support-admin.wrklst.art/rails/active_storage/blobs/redirect/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsibWVzc2FnZSI6IkJBaHBaQT09IiwiZXhwIjpudWxsLCJwdXIiOiJibG9iX2lkIn19--0088ac8284ebd8b3b6678430f8f83c7f8b58fa9d/en-bio-overview.jpg)

*Biographies: 1 Search artists · 2 Start a biography*

## Categories and lines

Add a **New category** or **Add an existing category**. A category has a **Public name**, shown in documents and on your website, an **Internal name** shown inside WrkLst, and a **Type** that says what kind of entries it holds: **Life**, **Education**, **Exhibitions**, **Press**, **Bibliography** or **Other**. Categories are shared by every biography in your account: renaming one renames it for every artist, and deleting it from one biography removes it everywhere if no other artist uses it. To use a category for something else, create a new one instead.

**Add a line** inside a category: a **Year**, optionally **Until** — a year, or a word such as "present" — the **Text**, and, where it applies, a **Link**, the **Exhibition** in WrkLst it refers to, or a **Document** you have already uploaded to the Media Library. Reorder categories and lines by dragging them, or with the arrow keys; **Expand all categories** and **Collapse all categories** keep a long CV manageable.

## What goes on your website

You decide per line what appears in public. **Published** lines appear in shared documents and on your website; an unpublished line stays internal, so a note can sit alongside a public exhibition history without leaking. **Show in news** also lists a line in the news block of your website.

## Pasting an existing CV

**Paste many lines** takes a whole CV at once. Start with a year — or a range such as 2016–2017 — and every line below it becomes one bio line, until the next year appears. WrkLst shows how many lines it will add before you confirm, and a short line such as "Solo" is read as text, not mistaken for a year.

## Exhibitions you record

Exhibitions you record in WrkLst can feed the biographies of the artists in them: an exhibition shows the biography entries it generated, and a line linked to an exhibition opens it with **Open exhibition**. See [Exhibitions](/hc/wrklst-docs/articles/1767343151-exhibitions).

## Publishing

Biographies can be exported as documents or synchronised with your website through the WordPress plugin or a custom integration — see [WordPress Plugin and REST API](/hc/wrklst-docs/articles/1786371811-word_press-plugin-and-rest-api). This is what makes the single-source-of-truth idea work: your website, your PDFs and your Word documents all derive from the same version. The artist's contact record shows the **Biography** too.

## Related articles

* [Create a New Artist Contact](/hc/wrklst-docs/articles/1767342788-create-a-new-artist-contact)
* [Exhibitions](/hc/wrklst-docs/articles/1767343151-exhibitions)
* [Document templates: PDFs, Word and Excel on your own letterhead](/hc/wrklst-docs/articles/1767343718-custom-document-templates-made-easy-with-wrk_lst)
* [WordPress Plugin and REST API](/hc/wrklst-docs/articles/1786371811-word_press-plugin-and-rest-api)
* [Media Library](/hc/wrklst-docs/articles/1767343294-media-library)