Renowned American artist and sculptor Richard Serra, known for transforming curved walls made of rusted steel and other malleable materials into large-scale pieces of outdoor spaces artistic work Now scattered around the world, he died on Tuesday at his home on Long Island, New York. He was 85 years old.
Considered one of the most prominent sculptors of his generation, he originally studied painting at Yale University, but turned to sculpture in the 1960s, inspired by his travels to Europe.
His death was confirmed on Tuesday evening by his lawyer, John Silberman, whose firm is headquartered in New York. He said the cause of death was pneumonia.
Known by his colleagues as the “Iron Poet,” Serra became world-famous for his large-scale steel structures, such as massive arches, spirals, and ellipses. It was closely associated with the minimalist movement of the 1970s.
Serra's work began to attract public attention in 1981, when he installed a 120-foot-long (36.5 m)-high, 12-foot-high (3.6 m) curved wall of raw steel bisecting New York City's Federal Square. The statue, called “The Leaning Arch,” sparked a swift backlash from people who work there and a strong demand for its removal. The statue was later removed, but Serra's popularity in the New York art scene was boosted.
Most walk widely He works Welded with Cor-Ten steel, but he also used other unconventional materials such as rubber, latex and neon – as well as molten lead, which Serra threw onto a wall or floor to create his “Splash” series early in his career.
His works have been installed in landscapes and included in museum collections around the world, from the Museum of Modern Art in New York to the deserts of Qatar.
In 2005, eight major works by Serra were permanently installed at the Guggenheim Museum in Spain. Carmen Jimenez, the exhibition's organizer, said Serra was “without a doubt the most important living sculptor.”
Serra was born to a Russian Jewish mother and a Spanish father in San Francisco, the second of three children in the family. He started drawing at an early age Inspired By the time he spent in a shipyard where his father worked as a pipe fitter. Before turning to sculpture, Serra worked in steel foundries to help fund his education at the University of California's Berkeley and Santa Barbara campuses. He then went to Yale University, where he graduated in 1964.
