Richard Serra was a sculptor known for his massive steel artworks, sometimes called the “poet of iron.”
- Died: March 26, 2024 (Who else died on March 26?)
- Details of death: Died at his home in Orient, New York, of pneumonia at the age of 85.
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Richard Serra’s legacy
Serra was often called the greatest sculptor of his time, and his imposing work can be seen around the world. He came of age in the minimalist art movement, and his stark sculptures reflect this influence. However, he spoke of a key inspiration that came much earlier than his art school days at Yale. Serra’s father worked at a San Francisco shipyard, and Serra had a formative memory of a visit to that shipyard on his fourth birthday. There, he watched a tanker launch, a moment that he later said contained “[a]ll the raw material that I needed,” in a 1993 interview with Bomb magazine.
Serra had initially intended to be a painter after switching from studying English literature to art. But his discovery of sculpture cemented his legacy. In his early years, he worked in materials like rubber, fiberglass, and lead, settling into raw steel by the 1970s. The large sheets of steel were formed into spiraling labyrinths or set to lean on curving angles, intended to be explored up close by the viewer. They were sometimes controversial, as when his “Tilted Arc,” installed outside a federal office building in New York City, was removed after complaints by employees there. But more frequently, Serra’s work was embraced and sought after.
Among Serra’s best-known works is a series of eight sculptures called “The Matter of Time,” housed at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. The elliptical curves of the sculptures invite visitors to walk through them. Other well-known pieces can be seen not just in museums and galleries but also in the landscape – as in Iceland’s “Afangar” and “East-West/West-East” in the Qatari desert. Some are integrated with urban landscapes in cities like London, Paris, and Berlin, while others are inside such buildings as the Toronto Pearson International Airport.
Serra on the evolving response to his work
“When I showed the first series of Torqued Ellipses in New York 10 years ago there was a definite sense that people were reacting to the work in a different way. People reacted to the curves in a way they didn’t to the angles and straight lines. They hadn’t seen that before. Modernism was a right angle; the whole 20th century was a right angle. …People were ready for curves.” —from a 2008 interview for the Guardian
Tributes to Richard Serra
Full obituary: The New York Times
