Featuring more than two hundred works spanning this postminimalist artist’s four-decade career, The Art of Richard Tuttle covers approximately fifteen bodies of work from the mid-1960s to the mid-2000s, making it the most comprehensive retrospective of the artist’s work of the time. Covering sculptures, assemblages, works on paper, artist books, and furniture, this retrospective emphasizes the artist’s versatility while accentuating certain core themes, including the importance of drawing to Tuttle’s practice and his distinct, consistent use of line.
The exhibition traces Tuttle’s practice across thematic sections, beginning with his “constructed paintings,” which merged elements of painting and sculpture, such as Fountain (1965). Letters (The Twenty-Six Series) (1966) initiated his career-long examination of the structure of written systems; the cloth pieces, begun in 1967, advanced his synthesis of painting and sculpture with elements of process and craft. Later highlights include the Paper Octagonals series (1970), the Wire Pieces (1972), 3rd Rope Piece (1974), the floor drawings (1987–89), the Waferboards (1996), 20 Pearls (2003), and various works in collage (1978), assemblage (early 1980s), drawings, and reliefs.
The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue.
The Art of Richard Tuttle is organised by Madeleine Grynsztejn and by the San Francisco Museum of Art.