richard serra, iconic american artist who bent the boundaries of sculpture, dies at 85

Richard Serra (1938 – 2024)

Richard Serra, the iconic American sculptor who changed the art world with his boundary-breaking creations, has passed away at the age of 85. He died on March 26, 2024, at his home in Orient, New York, due to pneumonia, as confirmed by his lawyer, John Silberman, to the New York Times. 

Known by his colleagues as the ‘poet of iron’, Serra was best known for his monumental curved steel sculptures, like Matter of Time, which is permanently showcased at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. His large-scale works, featuring dizzying spirals or imposing cubes and pyramids, consistently beckon viewers to explore them, despite their imposing size and commanding presence, challenging them to reconsider their understanding of space and physicality.

In 2023, designboom celebrated the oeuvre of Richard Serra with the worldwide digital premiere of You Are The Subject: Richard Serra at Glenstone, a film created by Glenstone Museum to mark the completion of its newest building by Thomas Phifer and Partners. ‘Richard Serra is a rock star — there’s no better sculptor, certainly in my generation,’ Thomas Phifer had remarked in an interview with designboom. 

portrait of Richard Serra | image © Oliver Mark via Wikimedia, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

The life and work of Richard Serra

Born in 1938 in San Francisco. While working in steel mills to support himself, Serra attended the University of California, Berkeley before transferring to the University of California, Santa Barbara graduating with a BA in English literature. He then studied painting at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut completing both a BFA and MFA. He began showing with Leo Castelli in 1968, and his first solo exhibition in New York was held at the Leo Castelli Warehouse the following year. His first solo museum exhibition was held at the Pasadena Art Museum, California, in 1970.

Richard Serra, renowned for his sculptures and drawings, has been celebrated with two retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art, New York: Richard Serra/Sculpture (1986) and Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years (2007). He has had solo exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Kunsthalle Tübingen in Germany, the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden in Germany, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Louisiana Museum in Humlebæk, Denmark, the Kunsthaus Zürich, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Centro de Arte Hélio Oiticica, Rio de Janeiro, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli in Naples, Italy, and many more,

Richard Serra, Transmitter, 2020 © 2021 Richard Serra/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York | image by Thomas Lannes courtesy of Gagosian

In 2005, The Matter of Time (1994–2005), comprising eight large-scale works, found a permanent home at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain. For Monumenta 2008, the Grand Palais in Paris hosted the major site-specific installation, Promenade. Three years later, the site-specific sculpture 7 was permanently installed opposite the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar. From 2011 to 2012, a significant traveling retrospective dedicated to Serra’s drawings graced the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Menil Collection in Houston, the organizing venue.

In 2014, the Qatar Museums Authority curated a retrospective survey of Serra’s work across two venues. East-West/West-East (2014) found its permanent place in the Brouq Nature Reserve, Zekreet, Qatar. The Museum Wiesbaden in Germany presented Richard Serra: Props, Films, Early Works in 2017, while an overview of Serra’s work in film and video was exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Basel. Recent drawings by Serra were also showcased at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.

Serra’s contributions extend to numerous major international exhibitions, including Documenta and the Biennale di Venezia. His work has been featured in several Whitney Annuals and Biennials. Over the years, Serra has received prestigious awards, including the Leone d’Oro for lifetime achievement at the Biennale di Venezia in 2001, the Orden Pour le Mérite für Wissenschaften und Künste from the Federal Republic of Germany in 2002, the Orden de las Artes y las Letras de España in Spain in 2008, the President’s Medal from the Architectural League of New York in 2014, the Chevalier de l’Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur from the Republic of France in 2015, and the J. Paul Getty Medal in 2018.

Richard Serra, Transmitter, 2020 © 2021 Richard Serra/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York | image by Thomas Lannes courtesy of Gagosian

Richard Serra, The Matter of Time, 2005 © 2018 Richard Serra/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York | image courtesy of Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa

Richard Serra, Four Rounds: Equal Weight, Unequal Masure, 2017 © 2022 Richard Serra / Artists Right Society (ARS), New York

Richard Serra, NJ-2, 2016 © 2016 Richard Serra/Artists Rights Society (ARS). New York | image by Mike Bruce courtesy of Gagosian

Richard Serra, Inside Out, 2013 © 2018 Richard Serra/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York | image by Lorenz Kienzle courtesy of Gagosian

Richard Serra, Hands Tied, 1968 (still), Museum of Modern Art, New York © 2020 Richard Serra/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Richard Serra, Verb List, 1967-68 © 2018 Richard Serra/Artists Rights Society (ARS). New York