Richard Serra

Richard Serra (born November 2, 1938) is an American artist, widely known for his very large, self-supporting minimalist sculptures, often of weathered sheet steel.

Richard Serra is also a printmaker who has pushed the boundaries of the print medium. When he began printmaking in 1972, he was already known for his use of raw steel and other industrial materials in his large scale sculpture. As in his sculpture, Serra achieves these same qualities of massiveness and an intimidating sense of monumentality in his 2-dimensional prints. Serra’s prints are also about tactility – they are made deploying thick, black ink as a medium and a property which is massive and ominous. In his etching, Level IV, 2010, Serra uses a densely textured ink that appears similar to paintstick which conveys the weight and physical presence similar to his sculpture.