Mastery in Metal

Vancouver-born Robert Murray (b.1936) is revered as Canada’s most celebrated abstract sculptor. A graduate of the Regina College School of Art and a five-time participant of the famed Emma Lake Artists’ Workshops, Murray created monumental and brightly coloured outdoor works that have been recognized internationally and exhibited alongside works by iconic sculptors including Donald Judd and Alexander Calder. After moving to New York in 1960 on a Canada Council grant, Murray gained international recognition for his bold and ambitious steel and aluminum sculptures. Focusing on the critical years of Murray’s artistic development, from the 1960s to the 1980s, this online exhibition reveals how his early minimalist sculptures gave way to more lyrical and elaborate forms as he explored new methods of industrial fabrication.

This exhibition is curated by Jonathan D. Lippincott. He is the author of two books, Robert Murray: Sculpture and Large Scale: Fabricating Sculpture in the 1960s and 1970s. He has written about art for The Paris Review Daily, On-Verge, and Tether: A Journal of Art, Literature, and Culture. He has curated shows including Chromatic Space, the eightieth-anniversary exhibition for American Abstract Artists, at the Shirley Fiterman Art Center in New York City, and Celestial and Terrestrial, at the New Arts Program in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. Lippincott is the associate director of the non-profit publisher Library of American Landscape History, the leading publisher of books that advance the study and practice of American landscape architecture.