The Jewish-American artist Richard Serra, known for his massive steel sculptures, passed away on Tuesday from pneumonia at the age of 85, as reported by The New York Times.
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Serra was born in San Francisco in 1938 to a father of Spanish descent and a Jewish-Ukrainian mother. According to his biographies found in the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco and the Guggenheim Museum, he used to visit shipyards where his father worked, and during his youth, worked in steel mills.
After completing his studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and Yale University, he moved to New York in 1966, where he began creating art using industrial materials such as steel, fiberglass, and rubber.
Despite achieving great popularity later in his career, one of his works from 1981, named Tilted Arc, was not well-received by the public and received such negative reviews that it was removed from its location in Manhattan. The 36-meter steel piece is "remembered as one of the most reviled works of public art in the city’s history. It was ultimately taken away because people hated it so much," as was written by ARTnews magazine.
Serra's significant breakthrough occurred in 1969 when he was included in the list of "Nine Young Artists" for the Theodoron Awards by the Guggenheim Museum in New York. In the early 1980s, he traveled to his father's homeland, Spain, to study architecture, and eventually his works were also acclaimed in Europe, and presented in major museums in Germany and France.
His works were particularly appreciated in Spain, where he was offered a retrospective in the Reina Sofía Museum in 1992, and an exhibition dedicated exclusively to his work was presented at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. In 2002, The New Yorker published a comprehensive magazine article about him titled "The Man of Steel."
Despite the immense size of his works, Serra is considered a minimalist, with his works relying on the gap he created between the works and the viewers. Among his famous works are "Sea Level" in the Netherlands (1996), "Torqued Ellipses" (1986), a memorial to Nazi victims located in Berlin, and "Fulcrum" (1997) located on Liverpool Street in London.
The "Outdoor Circuit" (1986) sculpture is in the sculpture garden at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, which is a late version of "Circle," his work from 1972. His works are displayed in museums and public spaces worldwide, including Iceland, New Zealand, and Qatar. Serra is succeeded by his wife, art researcher Clara Weyergraf.