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What is the material that Richard Serra uses for his sculptures?
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Richard Serra prefers to use steel for his sculptures. He narrows that down and reports that rolled Cor-Ten steel with an evenly rusted surface is his favorite medium. The artist has experimented in other mediums, including film, but is best noted for his large-scale steel structures. Shop a selection of Richard Serra pieces from some of the world’s top art dealers on 1stDibs.
1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022
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Shop for Richard Serra Art on 1stDibs
Richard Serra 'Stop B S' Signed, Limited Edition Print
By Richard Serra
Located in San Rafael, CA
Richard Serra (American, B. 1938)
Stop B S (G. 2024), 2004.
From the portfolio 'Artists Coming Together'
Lithograph on wove paper
Signed in pencil and numbered 127/250 (there were al...
Category
Early 2000s Abstract Abstract Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Richard Serra 'Videy Afangar #6' Limited Edition, Signed Etching Print
By Richard Serra
Located in San Rafael, CA
Richard Serra (born 1939)
Videy Afangar #6, from Videy Afangar Series, 1991
Etching on Hahnemühle paper
Signed and dated in pencil lower right
Edition 73/75 (there were also 20 artis...
Category
1990s Abstract Abstract Prints
Materials
Etching
Double Level I
By Richard Serra
Located in Saint Louis, MO
Richard Serra
Double Level I, 2009
Etching
67 1/2 x 65 inches (171.5 x 165.1 cm)
Edition of 12/22
Signed
Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Abstract Prints
Materials
Etching
STILL FROM HAND CATCHING LEAD by Richard Serra (image of hand)
By Richard Serra
Located in New York, NY
Richard Serra (1939 - 2024) was one of the most important artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Serra experimented with sculpture, printmaking and video in pursuit of his investiga...
Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph, Screen
Silence For John Cage Hand Signed by Richard Serra exhibition print Minimalist
By Richard Serra
Located in New York, NY
Richard Serra
Silence, For John Cage (Hand Signed), 2016
Offset lithograph (hand signed by Richard Serra)
29 inches vertical × 39 inches horizontal
Boldly signed in black marker on t...
Category
2010s Minimalist Abstract Prints
Materials
Offset, Permanent Marker, Lithograph
Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective (hand signed by Richard Serra)
By Richard Serra
Located in New York, NY
Richard Serra
Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective (hand signed by Richard Serra), 2011
Hardback monograph with dust jacket (hand signed by Richard Serra)
Hand signed by Richard Serra on the title page
12 × 10 × 1 1/2 inches
Provenance
Strand bookshop New York, official signed copy (see cover)
This is the official signed copy from Strand bookshop, NY. bearing the "Signed Copy" stamp on the cover.
Makes a superb gift!
Published on the occasion of these exhibitions:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art(04/11/11-08/28/11)
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (10/15/11-01/16/12)
The Menil Collection (03/02/12–06/10/12)
Book information:
Published by Yale University Press, CO, and The Menil Collection, Houston.
English; Hardback; 232 pages with 160 quadratone illustrations
Publisher's blurb:
As the focal point of numerous high-profile exhibitions, the sculpture of Richard Serra (b. 1939) has drawn international acclaim. Yet even those who have marveled at Serra's intellectually rigorous and large works of sculpture may not be familiar with his equally intriguing drawings. This handsome book brings together for the first time Serra's drawn work, considering the artist's investigation of medium as an activity both independent from and linked to his pioneering sculptural practice.
First working in ink, charcoal, and lithographic crayon on paper, Serra originally used drawing as a means to explore form and perceptual relations between his sculpture and the viewer. Over time, his drawings underwent significant shifts in concept, materials, and scale and became fully realized and autonomous works of art. The grand, bold forms he created with black paintstick in his monumental Installation Drawings were designed to disrupt and complement existent spaces and eventually began to occupy entire rooms. In the late 1980s, Serra explored the tension of weight and gravity through layering, and his most recent work experiments with surface effects, using mesh screens as intermediaries between the gesture and the transfer of pigment to paper.
More about Richard Serra:
Obsession is what it comes down to. It is difficult to think without obsession, and it is impossible to create something without a foundation that is rigorous, incontrovertible, and, in fact, to some degree repetitive. Repetition is the ritual of obsession. Repetition is a way to jumpstart the indecision of beginning. To persevere and to begin over and over again is to continue the obsession with work. Work comes out of work. In order to work you must already be working.
—Richard Serra
One of the most significant artists of his generation, he has produced large-scale, site-specific sculptures for architectural, urban, and landscape settings spanning the globe, from Iceland to New Zealand.
Born in 1938 in San Francisco, Richard Serra lives and works in New York and on the North Fork of Long Island. Serra attended the University of California, Berkeley before transferring to the University of California, Santa Barbara graduating with a BA in English literature; he then studied painting at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut completing both a BFA and MFA. He began showing with Leo Castelli in 1968, and his first solo exhibition in New York was held at the Leo Castelli Warehouse the following year. His first solo museum exhibition was held at the Pasadena Art Museum, California, in 1970.
Serra’s sculptures and drawings have been celebrated with two retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, twenty years apart: Richard Serra/Sculpture (1986) and Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years (2007). He has had solo exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1977–78); Kunsthalle Tübingen, Germany (1978); Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany (1978); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands (1980, 2014, and 2017); Centre Pompidou, Paris (1983–84); Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld, Germany (1985); Louisiana Museum, Humlebæk, Denmark (1986); Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Münster, Germany (1987); Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich (1987); Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands (1988); Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, Netherlands (1990); Kunsthaus Zürich (1990); CAPC Musée d’Art Contemporain, Bordeaux, France (1990); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (1992); Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany (1992); Dia Center for the Arts, New York (1997); Centro de Arte Hélio Oiticica, Rio de Janeiro (1997–98); Trajan’s Market, Rome (1999–2000); Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis (2003); and Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples, Italy (2004).
In 2005 The Matter of Time (1994–2005), a series of eight large-scale works, was installed permanently at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain. For Monumenta 2008, the major site-specific installation Promenade was shown at the Grand Palais, Paris. Three years later the large-scale, site-specific sculpture 7 was permanently installed opposite the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar. A major traveling retrospective dedicated to Serra’s drawings was presented at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Menil Collection, Houston (the organizing venue), from 2011 to 2012.
In 2014 the Qatar Museums Authority presented a two-venue retrospective survey of Serra’s work, and East-West/West-East (2014) was permanently installed in the Brouq Nature Reserve, Zekreet, Qatar. In 2017 the Museum Wiesbaden, Germany, presented Richard Serra: Props, Films, Early Works; an overview of Serra’s work in film and video was shown at the Kunstmuseum Basel; and recent drawings were featured at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
Serra has participated in numerous major international exhibitions, including Documenta (1972, 1977, 1982, and 1987), and the Biennale di Venezia (1980, 1984, 2001, and 2013), and his work has been included in many Whitney Annuals and Biennials (1968, 1970, 1973, 1977, 1979, 1981, 1995, and 2006). He is the recipient of the Leone d’Oro for lifetime achievement, Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2001); Orden Pour le Mérite...
Category
2010s Minimalist Abstract Prints
Materials
Paper, Mixed Media, Permanent Marker, Lithograph, Offset


