Sir Anthony Caro, the British abstract sculptor whose abstract works are considered among the key sculptures of the post-war era, has died. He was 89-years-old.
The Tate Museum said that he had died of a heart attack on Wednesday in London, reports The New York Times.
Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota said that Caro was “one of the outstanding sculptors of the past 50 years,” notes the BBC.
Caro, who hoped to keep working even when he turned 100, had begun his career in the mid-1950s and was seen as a rising sculptor in Britain at the time. But then he went to a convention in the U.S. in 1959, which exposed him to the work of David Smith and color field artists. That changed the direction of his work forever.
His work became abstract, combining steel plates and other metal pieces that came with no art connotations. Then, he added color, which gave his work a unique appearance. He began to get wider public attention in the early 1960s.
“It's what I like doing. Old age is a shock, but I still enjoy making the works,” he told The Independent this June. “I look forward to going into the studio. I would be bored if I didn't do that.”
“Sir Anthony Caro OM CBE RA was one of the greatest sculptors in the second half of the twentieth century,” Royal Academy of Arts chief executive Charles Saumarez Smith said. “He was elected as a Senior Member of the Royal Academy on 9 March 2004 and will be much missed by the RA as well as his friends and admirers internationally.”