Richard Serra, known for Monumental Steel Sculptures, dies at the Age of 85

Serra’s colossal works are installed all over the world, from Paris museums to the Qatari desert where four giant steel plates, each 14 metres high, are positioned over a distance of one kilometre (0.62 miles).

“This is the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done,” Serra said at the time of the sculpture known as East-West/West-East. “It’s a piece that I’d really like to be seen.”

Born in San Francisco in 1938 to a Spanish father and Russian mother, Serra grew up visiting the shipyards where his father worked. He worked in steel mills to support himself while he studied English Literature at the University of California before going on to study painting at Yale.

In 1966, Serra moved to New York where he began making art from industrial materials such as metal, fibreglass and rubber. Known by his colleagues as the “poet of iron,” Serra became world-renowned for his large-scale steel structures, such as monumental arcs, spirals and ellipses that were welded in Cor-Ten steel. He also worked with other non-traditional materials – such as rubber, latex, neon and molten lead – and was closely identified with the minimalist movement of the 1970s.