Lot Essay
“Few artists have pushed drawing to such sculptural and even architectural extremes as Richard Serra. He has magnified the medium with immense black shapes that sit directly on the wall, their absorptive darkness forcing the space around them to expand or contract. Using black oil paintstick, he has exaggerated drawing’s physical surface, creating expanses of texture that have the rough tactility of bark, or massing dark, roiled spheres as thick as mud pies” (R. Smith, “Sketches from the Man of Steel,” New York Times, April 14, 2011).