Famed Sculptor Richard Serra, the ‘Poet of Iron,’ Dies at 85

Renowned Amer­i­can artist Richard Ser­ra, cel­e­brat­ed for his mas­sive steel sculp­tures and mon­u­men­tal works of art, died on Tues­day at his home in Long Island, New York. He was 85 years old.

A pio­neer of large-scale, site-spe­cif­ic art, Ser­ra’s inno­v­a­tive approach to sculp­ture helped rede­fine the genre and trans­form pub­lic spaces around the world. His icon­ic pieces, char­ac­ter­ized by their curv­ing walls of rust­ing steel and impos­ing pres­ence, can be found in urban land­scapes and pres­ti­gious muse­ums alike.

Born in San Fran­cis­co to a Russ­ian-Jew­ish moth­er and a Span­ish father, Ser­ra ini­tial­ly stud­ied paint­ing at Yale Uni­ver­si­ty before turn­ing his focus to sculpt­ing in the 1960s. His break­through came in 1981 with the instal­la­tion of “Tilt­ed Arc,” a 120-foot-long and 12-foot-high curv­ing wall of raw steel in New York City’s Fed­er­al Plaza. Despite con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the piece, Ser­ra’s rep­u­ta­tion as a vision­ary sculp­tor was solidified.

Over the course of his illus­tri­ous career, Ser­ra’s work was exhib­it­ed in count­less gal­leries and insti­tu­tions, includ­ing the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art in New York and the Guggen­heim Muse­um in Spain. In 2005, eight of his mon­u­men­tal sculp­tures were per­ma­nent­ly installed at the lat­ter, with exhi­bi­tion orga­niz­er Car­men Jimenez hail­ing him as “beyond doubt the most impor­tant liv­ing sculptor.”

Work­ing pri­mar­i­ly with Cor-Ten steel, Ser­ra also exper­i­ment­ed with uncon­ven­tion­al mate­ri­als like rub­ber, latex, neon, and molten lead. His “Splash” series, cre­at­ed by throw­ing molten lead against walls or floors, exem­pli­fied his dar­ing and inno­v­a­tive approach to art.

As news of Ser­ra’s pass­ing spreads, the art world mourns the loss of an icon whose extra­or­di­nary vision and tal­ent left an indeli­ble mark on the land­scape of con­tem­po­rary sculpture.