Skip to content
Richard Serra Tracks #2, 2007

Richard Serra
Tracks #2, 2007
Paintstick on handmade paper
41 7/8 x 41 7/8 inches

Richard Serra Lines of Thought, 2001

Richard Serra
Lines of Thought, 2001
Oilstick on paper
39 1/4 x 40 inches

Richard Serra Orchard Street #110, 2018

Richard Serra
Orchard Street #110, 2018
Etching ink and silica on handmade paper
40 x 40 inches

Richard Serra Finally Finished, 2017

Richard Serra
Finally Finished, 2017
1 color etching
75 x 59 3/4 inches
Edition of 62

Richard Serra Double Rift V, 2014

Richard Serra
Double Rift V, 2014
Hand-applied Paintstik and silica on coated paper
60 x 180 inches
Edition of 15

Richard Serra Finally Finished II, 2017

Richard Serra
Finally Finished II, 2017
1 color etching
75 x 59 3/4 inches
Edition of 42

Richard Serra Paths and Edges #4, 2007

Richard Serra
Paths and Edges #4, 2007
1 color etching
21 1/2 x 38 1/2 inches
Edition of 60

Richard Serra Paths and Edges #7, 2007

Richard Serra
Paths and Edges #7, 2007
1 color etching
20 1/4 x 29 inches
Edition of 60

Richard Serra Paths and Edges #9, 2007

Richard Serra
Paths and Edges #9, 2007
1 color etching
20 x 26 1/4 inches
Edition of 60

Richard Serra Transparency #5, 2012

Richard Serra
Transparency #5, 2012
Litho crayon on mylar
30 x 24 inches

Richard Serra Orchard Street #51, 2018

Richard Serra
Orchard Street #51, 2018
Etching ink and silica on handmade paper
39 3/4 x 39 3/4 inches

Richard Serra Orchard Street #79, 2018

Richard Serra
Orchard Street #79, 2018
Etching ink and silica on handmade paper
47 1/4 x 31 3/4 inches

Richard Serra Orchard Street #82, 2018

Richard Serra
Orchard Street #82, 2018
Etching ink and silica on handmade paper
40 1/4 x 40 1/2 inches

Richard Serra Diptych #2, 2019

Richard Serra
Diptych #2, 2019
Paintstick, etching ink and silica on two sheets of handmade paper
47 1/2 x 63 inches

Richard Serra Between the Torus and the Sphere I, 2006

Richard Serra
Between the Torus and the Sphere I, 2006
1 color etching
39 1/2 x 39 1/2 inches
Edition of 45

Richard Serra Greenpoint Horizontal Reversal #1, 2014

Richard Serra
Greenpoint Horizontal Reversal #1, 2014
Litho crayon on handmade paper in two parts
40 x 60 inches

Richard Serra Between the Torus and the Sphere IV, 2006

Richard Serra
Between the Torus and the Sphere IV, 2006
1 color etching
39 1/2 x 39 1/2 inches
Edition of 45

Press Release

Berggruen Gallery is proud to present Richard Serra: Works on Paper, an exhibition of drawings and prints from 2001 to 2019 by one of the most significant artists of his generation, Richard Serra. This show marks the artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery and will be on view February 20 through April 4, 2020. The gallery will hold an opening reception Thursday, February 20 from 5:00 to 7:00pm.

Though predominantly known and celebrated for his monumental sculptures, Richard Serra’s works on paper are tremendously important to his practice. Serra explains, “drawing gives me an immediate return for my effort and the result is commensurate with my involvement. It is an activity that requires solitude, it is the most concentrated space in which I work.” The artist has created drawings as a separate and immediate meditation for the near entirety of his career. Serra’s drawings simultaneously function as unique works, as well as elementary line investigations into his sculptures. His gestural sweeps of paintstick and crayon are urgent and explorative, revealing something increasingly instinctive and intimate within the artist’s greater oeuvre. 

Employing a breadth of innovative techniques, Serra evolves the very mediums of drawing and etching. In his drawing practice, the artist heats paintstick or oilstick to a viscous state in order to further direct his mediums onto handmade papers. Turning to his work in printmaking, Serra also reinvigorates the traditional etching medium by using deeply bitten plates in his conception of gestural forms. Throughout his career and to this day, the artist experiments with highly sophisticated screenprint and intaglio techniques with Gemini G.E.L, resulting in exquisite prints which demonstrate a deeper and more articulated relief.

Spanning the last two decades of the artist’s career, the work comprising Richard Serra: Works on Paper displays a unique realization of the kind of forms Serra has been most recently consumed by. With bold lines that curve, wind, and spin, Serra’s mark-making on paper evokes a similar excitement to his acclaimed sculptures. Other pieces abandon Serra’s major concern with curvature, instead boasting textural studies in etching ink and silica. Altogether, the artist’s works on paper present themselves as dense and confrontational while simultaneously remaining playful and experiential.

Richard Serra was born in San Francisco, California in 1939. Serra first studied English literature at the University of California, Berkeley and later at the University of California, Santa Barbara from 1957-1961. He supported himself by working in steel mills, which had a strong influence on the work for which he would become renowned. Serra also cites the San Francisco shipyard, where his father worked as a pipefitter, as influential. Serra went on to study painting at Yale University, where he received his B.F.A. and M.F.A. by 1964. Serra received his first solo exhibition at the Galleria La Salita, Rome, in 1966. Two years later, the young artist had his first American solo exhibition with Leo Castelli, New York, in 1968. Serra’s work has been honored with two retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1986 and 2007. From 2011 to 2012, Serra had a major traveling retrospective dedicated to his drawings, presented at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Menil Collection, Houston. Other major museum shows devoted to Serra's drawings include: Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1977-1978;  Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria, 2008; and Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2017. His work is held in important private and public collections across the globe, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario; Art Institute of Chicago; the Detroit Institute of Arts; the Dia Art Foundation, New York; the Guggenheim Bilbao; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo; the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Qatari Museums Authority; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York; and the Tate Modern, London. Additionally, Serra has achieved numerous awards and honors, including the Leone d’Oro for lifetime achievement, Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2001); Orden Pour le Mérite für Wissenschaften und Künste, Federal Republic of Germany (2002); Orden de las Artes y las Letras de España, Spain (2008); President’s Medal, Architectural League of New York (2014); Chevalier de l’Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur, Republic of France (2015); and J. Paul Getty Medal (2018). Richard Serra currently lives and works in New York City and on the North Fork of Long Island.

Richard Serra: Works on Paper, February 20 – April 4, 2020. On view at 10 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, CA 94105. Images and preview are available upon request. For all inquiries, please contact the gallery by phone (415) 781-4629 or by email info@berggruen.com.