Richard Serra

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 Fellowship. Included 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

2004 Included in exhibitions: Jasper Johns & Richard Serra, at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; A minimal future? Art as object 1958–1968, at Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California

2005 Solo exhibition, Richard Serra: new etchings, at Works on Paper Inc., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

2006 Included in exhibition, Whitney biennial 2006: day for night, at Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

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

2008 Solo exhibitions: Richard Serra drawings: work comes out of work, at Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz, Austria; Richard Serra: promenade, at Grand Palais, Paris, France

2011 Travelling solo exhibition, Richard Serra drawing: a retrospective, originating at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; included in group exhibition, Malevich and the American legacy, at Gagosian Gallery, New York

2012 Solo exhibitions: Transparencies: Richard Serra recent drawings, at Craig F. Starr Gallery, New York; Richard Serra: drawings, at Gagosian Gallery, Paris, France

2013 Solo exhibitions: Richard Serra: drawings for the Courtauld, at Courtauld Gallery, London, England; Richard Serra: double rifts, at Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles; Richard Serra: trajectory, at Alan Cristea Gallery, London, England; Richard Serra: early work, at David Zwirner, New York.

2024 Richard Serra died in Orient, New York

Barbara Delano © Tyler Graphics Ltd., revised Kate Buckingham, 2007; revised Julia Greenstreet, 2013
This chronology provides an overview of selected biographical information, major solo and group exhibitions held within the artist's own lifetime.