Richard Serra, Sculptor of Monumental Steel, Dies at 85

Richard Serra, who died in March 2024 aged 85, made art you could walk inside. His vast sheets of rusting steel — curving, leaning, towering overhead — turned sculpture into something you experience with your whole body.

From the controversial 'Tilted Arc' in New York to the great spiralling 'Torqued Ellipses', his work could feel both menacing and sublime, forcing visitors to slow down and pay attention to weight, balance and time.

A former steel-mill worker, Serra brought industrial muscle into the gallery and never lost his faith in the raw power of material. He leaves some of the most physically overwhelming art of his era.

Image: “Richard Serra Fulcrum (28571152592)” — Paul Trafford, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.