Born and residing in Canada, Murray’s work typifies a striking result in scale, optimism, technical genius and surface treatment. Reflective of his start as a painter, the bright monochromatic color of Hillary is reflective of his work since the 1960s. Murray’s sculptures are non-representational, evolved from his early reductivist tendencies and are exacting of formal values. Masculine in nature, large and assertive, his monumental works are created from cut sheet metal that is gently bent, folded and curved, as seen in this sculpture. Elongated, voluptuous rolls in Hillary create a floating, billowing effect defying the still, unyielding characteristics generally associated with sheets of aluminum or steel. Allowing you to enter the space of the sculpture, Hillary exemplifies the quality of weightlessness, defiant of the pull of gravity. As in his color field canvases from Murray’s earlier years as a painter, each sculpture commands attention through its size and vibrant painted surface. Robert Murray is an accomplished artist who has received international recognition. He is especially well recognized in the United States and Canada, where he grew up and attended college. He has been awarded one-person exhibitions at the Dayton Art Institute, the Delaware Art Museum, the Reading Public Museum, Rice University, Muhlenberg College and has participated in numerous group shows. Works by Murray are in collections at the the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Columbus Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Montreal Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Canada, Storm King Art Center, the Walker Art Center and many college campuses in North America. | | 
Hillary, 1983
Painted aluminum
68” x 184” x256”
Courtesy of The Sculpture Foundation, Inc. |
