Richard Tuttle - Surface

Richard Tuttle’s Surface (1997) is a photogravure featuring a rhythmic field of hand-drawn marks that blend gesture with repetition, creating a quiet tension between spontaneity and structure. The minimal composition and soft tonal shifts draw attention to materiality and nuance, hallmarks of Tuttle’s approach. Issued in an edition of 100, each print is hand-signed and numbered by the artist.

Richard Tuttle's work is most immediately and clearly perceived on an intuitive, physical, experimental level; it is 'felt' rather than understood', and lends itself to a powerful, often transcendental physical assimilation rather than to verbal analysis. - Marcia Tucker, Whitney Museum of Art, 1975

Richard Tuttle is an influential and provocative American artist, who is often associated with post-minimalism and conceptualism. Embracing sculpture, painting, drawing, collage, design and prints, his abstract artworks challenge rules and conventions of genre and media. Although a great part of Tuttle’s artistic output has taken the form of three-dimensional objects, he understands his artwork as drawing rather than sculpture: "Everything in life is a drawing, if you want. Drawing is quite essential to knowing the self. Art that survives from one generation to the next is the art that actually carries something that tells society about self." In his compositions, the artist explores the relationships between line, volume, color and texture, whilst emphasizing their thoughtful subtleties. Richard Tuttle once stated: “If you’re going to be a visual artist, then there has to be something in the work that accounts for the possibility of the invisible, the opposite of the visual experience.” Unlike the rationality and industrial precision of his minimalist contemporaries, Tuttle embraced the imperfection of handmade objects and is a vocal proponent of beauty and the persuasive power of aestheticism. Influences on his artworks include poetry, calligraphy and language. Richard Tuttle has created artist’s books, collaborated on the design of exhibition catalogues, and is an accomplished printmaker. In his printmaking practice, Tuttle explores the intersection of delicacy and materiality, where each limited edition print reflects his meticulous attention to the nuances of texture and color. His fine art prints often serve as an extension of his broader artistic inquiries, where subtle shifts and minimal gestures yield profound visual statements. Richard Tuttle has been the subject of prominent solo exhibitions at international institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Dallas Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Whitechapel Gallery and Tate Modern, London. Richard Tuttle was born in Rahway, New Jersey, in 1941.