Richard Serra

San Francisco-born artist Richard Serra worked in local steel mills during his college years for extra money. This experience along with his Minimalist tendencies have lead him to be famously known for his monumental sculptures that push and question the boundaries of industrial mediums. From rubber belts with neon tubes to splashing molten lead, Serra’s work epitomizes the growing presence of alternative medium, paired with the dialogue between viewer and object that flourished in 1960 America.
In the 1970s, Serra began to use rolled steel and was commissioned for public art works around the world. Large-scale sculptures such as Serra’s Torqued Ellipse exude a looming physicality and impact and have been installed at locations such as the University of California, Los Angeles and the Broad Contemporary Art Museum. Serra currently shows at Gagosian galleries, one of the world’s top gallery forces, and has exhibited at MoMA, the Louvre and the Guggenheim.
In recent years, Richard Serra has kept his industrial and minimal tendencies and has begun creating drawings and mixed media images.

In 2008, Chapman University added one of Serra’s etchings on paper, Paths and Edges #4, to its collection. Part of a series, this piece displays both the past and future of the artist’s development and continues Serra’s prolific study of geometric form. American born and internationally renowned, Richard Serra’s work holds artistic importance that spans decades, locations and mediums.

Spike, 1991
Paintstik® on coated paper
138 x 95 1/2 in.© 2011 Richard Serra / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Gemini G.E.L. and the Artist
Gifted: Barbara & Raymond Alvarado
Thank you to Justin and Josh Landis for helping to direct the gift.