Richard Serra drawing on a lithographic plate, Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, 1972
Gift of Kenneth Tyler 2002
Photographer: Daniel Freeman

Richard Serra was born in San Francisco in 1939. He received his BA from the University of California in 1961, and his MFA from Yale University in 1964. After travelling and working extensively in Europe, Serra relocated to New York in 1966. He started creating sculpture by throwing molten lead against the ground in 1967, and began to create his Minimalist, often site-specific, sculpture from large sheets of metal after 1970. Though he is most widely known for this type of work, Serra has also worked in film and print.

In 1972 he began his print practice at Gemini GEL with a series of lithographs. The prints, with their energetic mark-making, are typical of the artist’s dynamic and often spontaneous early sculpture, while the preoccupation with shape foreshadows his later work.
Emilie Owens

Further reading

Chronology
 

1939
Born in San Francisco, California, United States of America

1961
Completes Bachelor of Arts, University of California, at Berkeley and Santa Barbara campuses

1963
Collaborates with Josef Albers on The Interaction of Color (New Haven: Yale University Press)

1964
Completes Masters of Fine Arts, Yale University, New Haven, Conneticut;

1965
Receives Yale Traveling Fellowship, lives in Paris, France for one year; travels to Athens, Greece and Istanbul, Turkey

1966
Receives Fulbright grant, lives in Florence First solo exhibition, Galleria La Salita, Rome Moves to New York, New York

1968
Included in Annual exhibition,Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

1969
Solo exhibition, Leo Castelli Warehouse, New York; included in exhibition, Nine young artists, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; When attitudes become form, Kunsthalle, Bern, Switzerland 

1970
Receives John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation FellowshipIncluded in Between man and matter, Tokyo Biennale, Japan; included in Annual exhibition,Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

1971
Included in exhibitions:Paris biennale, France; The Triennale of India, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Dehli;The Sixth Guggenheim International,Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York City; Art And technology, LA County Museum of Art, California

1972
Included in exhibitions: Documenta 5, Kassel, West Germany; Diagrams and drawings, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, The Netherlands;  Spoleto arts festival, Spoleto, Italy

1973
Included in Biennial exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and again in 1977, 1979, 1981, 1995, 2006

1974
Included in exhibitions: Some recent American art, organised by the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, travelled to National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, City of Auckland Gallery, New Zealand

1975
Receives award from the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine Included in travelling exhibitions: Color as language, organised by the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Sculpture American directions 1945-75, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

1977
Solo exhibition, Richard Serra: tekeningen/drawings 1971-77, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; included in exhibitions: Documenta 6, Kassel, West Germany; Paris-New York, Musée National d’art moderne, Paris

1979
Included in Annual exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois

1981
Receives Kaiserring Award for sculpture from the town of Goslar, West Germany Included in Biennale exhibition, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1982
Included in, Documenta 7, Kassel, West Germany

1983
Receives honorary fellowship from the Bezalel Academy, Jerusalem, Israel Solo exhibition, Richard Serra, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris; included in exhibition, Seventeenth biennale Antwerpen, Park Middelheim, Belgium; travels to Japan

1984
Included in exhibitions: Venice biennale, Italy; Gemini GEL: art and collaboration, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1985
Receives the Carnegie Award, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Included in exhibition, Internationale triennale de Zeichnung, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, West Germany

1986
Solo exhibition, Richard Serra: sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, New York; included in exhibition, Public and private: American prints today, Brooklyn Museum, New York

1987
Solo exhibition, Richard Serra: 7 spaces, 7 sculptures, Stadtische Galerie, Munich, West Germany; included in exhibition, Documenta 8, Kassel, West Germany; L’Epoque, la mode, la morale, la passion 1977-87: aspects de l’art d’Aujourd, Musée National d’Art moderne, Paris; Gemini GEL: art and collaboration, LA County Museum of Art, Los Angeles

1988
Travelling solo exhibition, Richard Serra: das druckgraphische werk Kunstverein 1972-88, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, West Germany; included in exhibition, From the Southern Cross: a view of world art c. 1940 – 1988, Biennale of Sydney, Australia

1990
Solo exhibition, Richard Serra: tekeningen/drawings, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, the Netherlands;included in exhibitions: The new sculpture 1965-75: between geometry and gesture, originating at the Museum of American Art, New York; The unique print/ 70s into the 90s, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Massachusetts

1991
Included in exhibition, Carnegie international, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh Receives Wilhelm Lehmbruck prize for sculpture in Duisburg, Germany

1992
Solo exhibition, Richard Serra, Centro de Arte Reina Sofia Madrid, Spain; included in exhibition, Both art and life: Gemini at 25, Newport Harbor Art Museum, California

1993
Included in exhibition, The second dimension: twentieth century sculptors drawings, Brooklyn Museum, New York; Beyond boundaries – art of the 1960s and 70s, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco

1994
Solo exhibition, Richard Serra: weight and measure, drawings, Drawing Center, New York Receives the Praemium Imperiale Award for sculpture, Tokyo

1996
Solo exhibition, Richard Serra: exchange (Dessins), Musée National d’Historie et d’Art, Luxembourg; included in exhibitions: Abstraction in the twentieth century: total risk, freedom, discipline, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Thinking print: books to billboards 1980-95, Museum of Modern Art, New York; International graphic biennial, Kaliningrad-Königsberg, Russia

1997
Solo exhibition, Torqued ellipses, Dia Center for the Arts, New York; included in Fourth biennale de Lyon, France

1998
Solo exhibition, Richard Serra, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

2001
Included in Venice biennale, Italy

2007
Solo exhibition, Richard Serra sculpture: forty years, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Richard Serra currently lives and works between New York, New York, United States of America and Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada

Barbara Delano © Tyler Graphics Ltd., revised Kate Buckingham, 2007
This chronology provides an overview of selected biographical information, major solo and group exhibitions held within the artist's own lifetime.

Further information will be added to this site as the National Gallery proceeds with its research and documentation.

Last updated June 2013