About Richard Tuttle

Richard Tuttle (born 1941 in Rahway, New Jersey) is a pioneering American contemporary artist whose work spans sculpture, painting, drawing, collage, design, and printmaking. Frequently associated with post-minimalism and conceptualism, Tuttle is renowned for his ability to challenge traditional artistic conventions while embracing subtlety, imperfection, and intimacy in his practice.

Although much of Tuttle’s artistic output takes the form of three-dimensional objects, he considers all of his work to be rooted in drawing. As he explains: “Everything in life is a drawing, if you want. Drawing is quite essential to knowing the self.” This emphasis on drawing as both process and philosophy reveals his deep interest in exploring the relationship between line, volume, color, and texture. Unlike his minimalist contemporaries, who often pursued rationality and industrial precision, Tuttle celebrates the handmade, the imperfect, and the poetic. His work reflects influences from literature, calligraphy, and language, often infused with an understated lyricism.

Tuttle has also made significant contributions as a printmaker, extending his conceptual inquiries into the medium of fine art prints. His limited edition prints showcase delicate material experimentation, where subtle shifts in texture, form, and color open up profound visual possibilities. Each edition embodies the artist’s belief in beauty, aesthetic persuasion, and the invisible dimensions of visual experience.

Beyond prints and objects, Richard Tuttle has created artist’s books, collaborated on exhibition catalogue designs, and consistently blurred the boundaries between art and life. His practice continues to provoke and inspire, positioning him as a key figure in contemporary art who redefined minimal gesture as a vehicle for meaning.

Auction record: US$1.8m, Sotheby’s, 2010

Notable exhibitions

Richard Tuttle has been the subject of major solo exhibitions and retrospectives at leading international institutions. His early survey at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (1975) established him as a key post-minimalist voice. Later retrospectives followed at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1984), the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia (2005), and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (2005).

A major European retrospective, Richard Tuttle: I Don’t Know. The Weave of Textile Language, opened at Tate Modern in London in 2014 and traveled to the Whitechapel Gallery. His work has also been included in important group presentations such as documenta in Kassel and the Venice Biennale, underscoring his lasting influence on the trajectory of contemporary art.