Walter De Maria, an artist who specialised in monumental sculptures and installations died at 77 from a stroke sufferedf two months ago on July 26, 2013 in Los Angeles.
Shunning the press, De Maria seldom gave interviews and often avoided participating in museum shows, preferring to create his installations outdoors or at specifically chosen locations in cities.
His work was therefore not much known in the United States though he was much acclaimed by critics and art experts. His most famous installation was "The Lightning Field," a land-art piece created in 1977 in New Mexico consisting of 400 polished stainless steel poles arranged in a rectangular array measuring 1 kilometer long and 1 mile wide which he created with the help of New York's Dia Art Foundation, a nonprofit organization that commissions long-term, site-specific installations and other projects.
Last October, the artist presented his installation "The 2000 Sculpture" at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The piece consisted of 2,000 white plaster rods arranged to form a geometric tessellation, creating different reflections of light.
De Maria was born on Oct. 1st, 1935, in Albany, California. He studied at UC Berkeley, where he was awarded a master's degree in art in 1959 before settling in New York. His first U.S. museum show came late in his career when the Menil Collection in Houston presented in 2011 "Walter De Maria: Trilogies," featuring three series of paintings, sculpture and other works.In fact, De Maria's art was more widely shown abroad than in the U.S., and he had major exhibitions in Japan and Europe.
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