(DailyDig.com) – Richard Serra, a sculptor and artist, died on March 26 in New York at age 85. He was a famous American who sculpted malleable steel and other materials into pieces of large outdoor artwork.
John Silberman, Serra’s lawyer, confirmed his death, which was caused by pneumonia. He said that the artist died at his home on Long Island.
He was born in San Francisco and became interested in drawing when he was young. He used the inspiration he received after the time he spent in his father’s shipyard. He was employed in steel foundries to finance his education at Berkeley and the University of California.
Serra worked in painting at Yale University, but then changed in the 1960s to sculpting. His European trips inspired him, leading him to join the minimalist art movement in the 1970s. He created arcs, ellipses, and spirals with steel and became world-famous for large structures.
In 1981, he began to acquire the attention of the public when he created a large, curved wall of steel that split New York City’s Federal Plaza. It was called “Tilted Arc,” which created some controversy with the people working on the plaza. They demanded its removal, but by the time it was taken down, he had gained popularity within the art scene in New York.
The majority of the works produced by Serra were with Cor-Ten steel, although he did use latex, rubber, neon, molten lead, and other materials that were not traditional. He used the molten lead to create a series called “Splash” near the beginning of his career by tossing the lead against walls.
Much of his work is seen in landscapes from the Qatar deserts to New York in the Museum of Modern Art. Eight of Serra’s works were placed on permanent display in Spain’s Guggenheim Museum in 2005. The exhibit’s organizer, Carmen Jimenez, claimed that Serra was undoubtedly “the most important” sculptor living at that time.
Serra’s art historian wife, Clara Weyergraf, has survived him.
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