Robert Therrien

No title (coffin), 2001
Japan color and graphite on Manila paper
Unframed: 16 3/8 x 13 inches (41.59 x 33.02 cm)
Framed: 28 3/4 x 22 5/8 inches (73.03 x 57.47 cm)
Courtesy of the Robert Therrien Estate

Selected by Ebony Haynes

Robert Therrien (1947–2019) was born in Chicago and studied art at the Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara before earning a graduate degree from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Therrien developed an array of forms and motifs based on his memories, creating imagery that was both familiar and aloof. His vast body of work explored and reworked numerous immediately identifiable forms in a serial manner. He would often revisit and modify these structures across various media, including drawing, sculpture, photography, and painting. His carefully wrought imagery encompassed everything from miniature works on paper to large-scale architectural sculptural installations, a series of which he made toward the end of his career. Therrien graduated from the University of Southern California in 1974 and remained in Los Angeles for the next forty-five years, living and working in a vast studio he designed himself.

In 1979, the artist received his first institutional solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Solo exhibitions of Therrien’s work continued to be held at significant institutions, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1984); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (1991), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2000); Public Art Fund, New York (2005); Kunstmuseum Basel (2008); Tate Modern, London (2009; 2018); The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2010); Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York (2006; 2013); Milwaukee Art Museum (2010); The Contemporary Austin, Texas (2015); Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London (2016); Gana Art Center, Seoul (2022); and The Broad, Los Angeles (2025).

Work by Therrien is held in institutional collections worldwide, such as The Broad, Los Angeles; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, New York; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Colección Jumex, Mexico City; Dallas Museum of Art; Denver Art Museum; De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg, the Netherlands; Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Kunstmuseum Basel; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent; Tate, United Kingdom; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

The Robert Therrien Estate is represented by David Zwirner.