NEW YORK—In 1967 Richard Serra famously compiled a list of verbs—to hurl, to split, to roll, to heap—which he then enacted through sculpture. From early experiments splashing molten lead against his studio walls through his decades-long engagement with steel, the emphasis on material and process has translated into vigorous artworks that are equally demanding of their spaces and viewers.

Fittingly for an artist who is notoriously uncompromising, Serra’s output does not conform to market barometers. “Richard doesn’t produce for the market,” says Alexander von Berswordt, of Galerie m in Bochum, Germany, who has represented the artist in Europe since 1975.

Despite early patronage from Leo Castelli (his main dealer in the ’70s and ’80s) and Emily and Joseph Pulitzer, sales were slim until the mid-1980s, the time of Serra’s retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In the 1990s, exhibitions of increasingly large work confirmed the notion that Serra may be the foremost living sculptor. Still, because of the scale of his art, his market remains unorthodox.

Museum and private commissions take up much of Serra’s time, and he is very selective. He has completed 13 in the last five years, including The Matter of Time (2005), a permanent installation of eight sculptures scaled from 12- to 14-feet high and weighing from 44 to 276 tons, at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.

Such site-specific works can’t be accommodated by many museums, never mind most homes. For sculptures acquired as part of MoMA’s permanent collection, late curator Kirk Varnedoe insisted on weight-bearing floors and created a door for craning in works. The Gagosian gallery in New York became Serra’s primary dealer in 1991 after opening a SoHo space with large entryways and a supported foundation. “It wasn’t until we opened on Wooster Street that we could physically show Richard’s work,” says Ealan Wingate, director of Gagosian’s Chelsea branch.

When a large outdoor piece came up for sale at Sotheby’s New York in 2001, the salesroom couldn’t house the work. Interested buyers were given viewings of the untitled, 1984 curved steel wall at the home of a collector in Connecticut. It sold for $1.2 million, the auction record for Serra.

“I’d expect it to sell for more if it came up now,” says Leslie Prouty, a senior specialist in Sotheby’s contemporary art department, though, she admits, potential buyers would also have to factor in rigging costs.

The circumstances aren’t drastically different for noncommissioned sculpture: some 40 pieces over the past decade, among them the “Torqued Ellipses,” towering plates of bent steel that were introduced in 1997 to much acclaim, and the austere linear blocks in “Rolled and Forged” (recently on view at Gagosian in Chelsea). The works—each unique as Serra does not make editions—currently sell for $3 million to $5 million.

According to von Berswordt, material production, installation and shipping costs account for about one-third of the price. The sculptures require major commitments, so in many cases, Wingate says, buyers purchase with the intent to donate: “Most of the time, they are put in public spaces.”

Serra also makes relatively small, though remarkably heavy, sculptures. The most sought after are the “Prop” pieces from the late 1960s, arranged so that weight and gravity balance lead rolls and sheets. “The lead pieces are very important and hardly available,” says von Berswordt, who has two in his inventory designated for sale to public institutions.

“It’s been a long time since truly great and relatively manageable sculpture has come up,” echoes Robert Manley, head of postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s New York. “A classic 1960s sculpture could easily sell for a million if not more.”

Instead less iconic examples from later years surface, resulting in figures that may seem low for an artist of Serra’s stature. A smaller sculpture from 1995, Zappa, sold at Christie’s New York in November 2001 for $446,000, against an estimate of $350–450,000. Still the price is the second highest for any Serra work at auction.