b. 1938, United States

Richard Serra Biography

Known for his for his large scale, site-specific steel sculptures, Richard Serra is an influential American Minimalist, based in New York and Nova Scotia. The Venice Golden-lion-winning artist's extensive career is often discussed in relation to the development of contemporary public art and 20th-century minimalist sculpture.

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Early Years

Working towards a BA in English literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Richard Serra developed an early interest in industrial materials while working in steel mills.

Studying for a BFA and MFA at Yale from 1961 to 1964, he came under the influence of Philip Guston, Josef Albers, and Morton Feldman, and interacted with other ground-breaking artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Ad Reinhardt, and Frank Stella. This—and two consecutive trips to Europe in 1965 and 1966—influenced the Minimalist nature of his work.

Richard Serra's first sculptures from the mid-1960s were made of rubber, fibreglass, and other non-traditional materials. The earliest works using the industrial metals Serra is known for came in the form of the process-based series 'Splash' (1968–1970). For this, the artist hurled molten lead at the points in gallery spaces where the walls met the floors, which cooled to create new forms. Serra's performance of this work during his exhibition at the Leo Castelli Warehouse in 1969 marked his official debut in the New York art scene.

Richard Serra Artworks

Richard Serra's iconic monumental Minimalist constructions, typically comprised of self-supporting, shaped and angled corten steel plates, challenge sculptural conventions of scale, material, and subject matter, as well as viewers' perceptions of gravity, bodily alignment, and planar space.

Props

Serra's 'Prop' pieces in the late 1960s, in which rolls of lead and sheets of other metals were arranged in configurations held together only by gravity, were precursors to the increasingly large-scale public work that developed when in the 1970s he turned his attention outdoors.

Outdoor Sculpture

Moving out of the gallery space Serra began creating monumental sculptures in the form of long, curving, horizontal or tall, and seemingly precarious (but partially buried) continuous steel sheets. Serra's works from the 1970s onward responded to, but jarringly altered, the landscapes and urban public places in which they were installed.

In the 1980s, as Serra's large-scale works were being taken to new heights and becoming commonplace across Europe, he encountered controversy in the United States with the installation of Tilted Arc (1981), a 3.7-metre-high, rusted corten steel arc crossing New York's Foley Federal Plaza. Disputes between the civic authorities, the public, and the artist resulted in its dismantlement in 1989, and carried on after.

Painting, Drawing, Prints and Film

Since the early 1970s Richard Serra has also produced dark drawings made with black paintstick, ink and paint on paper and canvas, as well as prints. These two-dimensional works evoke the same approach to time, process and materiality that define his sculpture.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Serra also made experimental films and videos. An early example is the self-explanatory 16mm, black-and-white film, Hand Catching Lead (1968), most of these films involved carrying out short bursts of manual tasks or actions within a limited time frame.

Rounds and Ellipses

Since the early 1990s, Serra's sculpture has taken new forms such as the open-but-enveloping 'Torqued Ellipse', and solid circular forged steel 'Rounds'. Serra also made several 'Rounds' prints, in a hands on process that produced textured black-hole like circles on paper. Richard Serra's Transmitter (2020), while differing from the exact Torqued Ellipse shape, follows the same semi-closed enveloping approach to space.

Serra continues to show his drawings and monumental sculptural installations in galleries, sculpture parks and public spaces around the world.

Public Commissions

Over the course of his more than five decade career, Richard Serra has been comissioned to produce numerous artworks for public spaces. His monumental steel constructions can be found in public locations across the globe from France to New Zealand.

Alongside the infamous Tilted Arc, other examples that generated less controversy include the towering Fulcrum (1987), near Liverpool Street station in London; Wake (2003), with its five pairs of closed-form S-shapes in Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park, the colossal 180-tonne Snake (1997) permanently installed at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, and the 80-foot 7 (2011) for the Museum of Islamic Art Park, in Doha.

Awards and Accolades

Richard Serra has received many accolades and medals for his art, including the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the 2001 Venice Biennale, a knighthood in the National Order of the Legion of Honour in France (2015), and the J. Paul Getty Medal (2018).

Exhibitions

Richard Serra has been the subject of solo exhibitions and group exhibitions in galleries and institutions internationally.

Richard Serra solo exhibitions include: Transmitter, Gagosian, Paris (2021); Richard Serra: Props, Films, Early Works, Museum Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden, Germany (2017); Richard Serra, Qatar Museum Authority, Doha, Qatar (2014); Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2011); Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York (2007); Richard Serra, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao (1999); Richard Serra: Weight and Measure, Tate Gallery, London (1992); Richard Serra/sculpture, MoMA, New York (1986); Richard Serra: Tekeningen/Drawings 1971-1977, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1977).

Richard Serra Group Exhibitions include: Knotted, Torn, Scattered: Sculpture after Abstract Expressionism, Guggenheim Museum, New York (2021); Beauty is a rare thing: Art in balance from Buchheister to Serra, Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf (2017); Ends of the Earth: Art of the Land to 1974, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2012); Mille et Tre, Musée du Louvre, Paris (2009); The American Century: Art & Culture 1900-2000, Part II, 1950-2000, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1999); Transformations in Sculpture: Four Decades of American and European Art, Guggenheim, New York (1985); Color As Language, Museo de Arte Moderno, Bogota (1974); Anti-Form, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1969).

Several museums—from the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art also permanently exhibit Serra's large-scale sculptures. Gagosian, which has represented the artist for 30 years, has chosen gallery spaces with Serra's preferred scale in mind.

Instagram

Richard Serra's Instagram can be found here.

Michael Irwin | Ocula | 2022

Richard Serra
featured artworks

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Equal VIII by Richard Serra contemporary artwork painting
Richard Serra Equal VIII, 2018 Painstik and silica on two sheets of handmade paper
181.6 x 99.1 cm
Mo J Gallery Request Price & Availability
Ballast I by Richard Serra contemporary artwork print
Richard Serra Ballast I, 2011 1 color etching
91.44 x 41.91 cm
Mo J Gallery Request Price & Availability
Weight I by Richard Serra contemporary artwork print
Richard Serra Weight I, 2009 1 color etching
198.12 x 91.44 cm
On Hold
Mo J Gallery
Horizontal Reversal 1 by Richard Serra contemporary artwork painting, drawing
Richard Serra Horizontal Reversal 1, 2017 Paintstick and silica
38 x 106.5 cm
Galerie Lelong & Co. Paris Request Price & Availability
Composite IV by Richard Serra contemporary artwork painting, drawing
Richard Serra Composite IV, 2018 Paintsick and silica
Galerie Lelong & Co. Paris Request Price & Availability
Bight 6 by Richard Serra contemporary artwork print
Richard Serra Bight 6, 2011 Etching
68.5 x 56 cm
Galerie Lelong & Co. Paris Request Price & Availability
Elevational Weight 4 by Richard Serra contemporary artwork drawing, mixed media
Richard Serra Elevational Weight 4, 2016 Paintstick and silica
61 x 76.2 cm
Galerie Lelong & Co. Paris Request Price & Availability
Orchard Street #12 by Richard Serra contemporary artwork works on paper
Richard Serra Orchard Street #12, 2018 Etching ink and silica on handmade paper
47 1/4 x 31 3/4 inches
David Zwirner Request Price & Availability
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Richard Serra
current & recent
exhibitions

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Represented by these
Ocula Member Galleries

Cardi Gallery contemporary art gallery in Milan, Italy
Cardi Gallery London, Milan
David Zwirner contemporary art gallery in New York: 19th Street, United States
David Zwirner Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris
Gagosian contemporary art gallery in 980 Madison Avenue, New York, United States
Gagosian Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco +7
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