Richard Serra

Richard Serra, (born November 2, 1939, San Francisco, California, U.S.), American sculptor who is best known for his large-scale abstract steel sculptures, whose substantial presence forces viewers to engage with the physical qualities of the works and their particular sites. Like other minimalists of his generation, Serra steered clear of art as metaphor or symbol, proposing instead the idea of sculpture as a phenomenological experience of weight, gravity, space, process, and time. Yet his sculptures still evoke a sense of the sublime through their sheer scale and materiality.

Serra was exposed early to the processes of metalwork; his father worked as a pipe fitter in the shipbuilding industry, and Richard worked in steel mills during his college years. He entered the University of California, Berkeley, in 1957 and graduated from the university’s Santa Barbara campus in 1961 with a B.A. in English literature. Serra had been interested in art since childhood, however, and he went on to study painting at Yale University, where by 1964 he had earned both B.F.A. and M.F.A. degrees. Supported by fellowships, he spent time in France and Italy before moving to New York City in 1966.