Richard Serra’s Freddie King (1999) stands as a commanding testament to the artist’s ability to merge raw material with monumental presence, transforming a work on paper into something that feels sculptural in its weight and force. Created using Serra’s distinctive paintstick technique—layering dense black pigment with a physicality that mirrors the process of forging steel—the work channels the same energy and intensity that defines his massive site-specific sculptures.

The title pays homage to Freddie King, the legendary American blues guitarist and singer, whose music was known for its raw power and unrelenting rhythm. Serra captures that spirit visually: the sheet is dominated by vast passages of deep, velvety black, built up through repetition, pressure, and gesture. The surface carries a sense of vibration and resonance, as though Serra were translating the chords of a blues guitar into visual form. The work invites the viewer to feel sound as much as see image—its dense strata of black suggesting both the weight of silence and the explosive release of music.

Unlike many works on paper, Freddie King feels monumental. Serra’s handling of scale, combined with his relentless application of material, creates a sense of architecture and gravity. At the same time, the title grounds the piece in something profoundly human and cultural, linking the elemental force of Serra’s visual language with the enduring legacy of blues music—a genre that itself is about resilience, depth, and soul.

As with Serra’s most significant works, Freddie King resists narrative while embodying a powerful presence. It is an object of rare intensity: austere yet deeply expressive, minimalist yet imbued with raw emotion. In its depth of black, its sheer force of mark-making, and its evocative tribute to a musical giant, the piece exemplifies Serra’s mastery of turning material into metaphor, weight into vibration, and surface into something timeless.

Created in 1999, this etching is hand-signed by Richard Serra (San Francisco, 1938 -) in the lower right image. Numbered from the edition of 32 in the lower left image.

Catalogue Raisonné & COA:
Richard Serra’s Freddie King (1999) is fully documented and referenced in the below catalogue raisonnés and texts (copies will be enclosed as added documentation with the invoices that will accompany the final sale of the work).

1. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany our Richard Serra’s Freddie King (1999).

About the Framing:
Framed to museum-grade, conservation standards, Richard Serra’s Freddie King (1999) is presented in a complementary moulding and finished with silk-wrapped mats and optical grade Plexiglas.