SAN FRANCISCO—Richard Tuttle may have entered the art world alongside the Minimalists in the 1960s, but his unique and gnomic use of everyday materials such as wire, plywood, string and fabric to create works that straddle painting and sculpture signaled the beginnings of the style's offshoot, which critic Robert Pincus-Witten dubbed Postminimalism. Long considered an artist's artist, he is cited as a primary influence by many of today's young artists.

Now Tuttle, 63, is getting his first full-scale American museum retrospective in 30 years; it opens next week at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and will then travel to the Whitney in New York, the Dallas Museum of Art, MOCA Chicago, MOCA Los Angeles and the Des Moines Art Center. Over 300 objects will fill SFMOMA's entire fourth floor, offering in-depth analysis of this iconoclastic artist's diverse practices and recurring themes.

Originated by Madeleine Grynsztejn, Elise S. Haas Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture at SFMOMA, "The Art of Richard Tuttle" includes works from 1958 to last year. Tuttle worked closely on the installation, recreating wall drawings and wire pieces as well as designing folding panels and cases to display drawings and books. The result is an exhibition that reflects his notion that "life is a crescendo" and is as much a snapshot of his expansive ideas as it is a survey of his oeuvre-to-date.

Like other recent and upcoming exhibitions focused on Tuttle's generationmajor shows of Robert Smithson, Eva Hesse, Gordon Matta-Clark and Richard Serra among them "The Art of Richard Tuttle" does much to reveal the enduring impact of the 1960s and 70s. As Grynsztejn explains, "Enough time has passed now that Postminimalism can be assessed with some critical and historical distance and the artists of the Postminimalist generation are now regarded as contemporary 'senior masters.' A public historical consensus is being reached and we are part of that history in the making."

Exhibition Schedule:

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (Jul 2-Oct 16, 2005); the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (Nov 10, 2005-Feb 5, 2006); the Des Moines Art Center (Mar 18-Jun 11, 2006); The Dallas Museum of Art (Jul15-Oct8, 2006); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (Nov 11, 2006-Feb 4, 2007); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (Mar 18-Jun 25, 2007).
Be sure to check out the profile of Richard Tuttle by Karen Wright in the July/August issue of Modern Painters.
All images courtesy of The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. All artwork Copyright Richard Tuttle. Images (top to bottom): Hort Family Collection; photo: Tom Powel, courtesy Sperone Westwater, New York; Collection of Byron R. Meyer, San Francisco; photo: Tom Powel, courtesy Sperone Westwater, New York; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; photo courtesy Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Collection FRAC Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France; photo courtesy FRAC Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France.