10 things to know about Richard Long

Richard Long began his career more than 50 years ago. He was born in Bristol, and studied at the city’s art academy. His breakthrough work in 1967 was A Line Made By Walking.

This work comprised a straight line that Richard Long made in a field in the English county of Wiltshire. To make it, Long walked across the field repeatedly, back and forth, creating a visible line in the tall grass. This work – rooted in the natural world – formed the basis of his entire career.

Journeys by foot such as the one that resulted in A Line Made By Walking are central to Long’s work. These treks have resulted in new works such as A Line in the Himalayas. Long loves traveling solo by foot, exploring the dimensions of space, time, scale and distance.

Long usually makes his art from what he finds along the way: natural materials such as wood, ash, grass, mud, water and stone – his favourite medium.

For Long to include a stone in his work, he must be able to lift and move it by hand – if he is unable to do so, he doesn’t use it. The artist laid out the sculptures in the Rijksmuseum Gardens and Atrium personally. The same goes for River of Stones in the Great Hall.

Richard Long’s work is different from nearly all other sculptural art in one key respect: his sculptures tend to be horizontal or very low on the ground, whereas most sculptures are vertical and directed upwards.

Long often returns to geometric shapes such as lines, crosses, squares, circles and spirals. Balance, periodicity and symmetry are crucial elements in his work. The resulting forms are universal: they will be familiar to everyone who sees them.

While Long’s work certainly affects the landscapes in which he makes them, they are not permanent. Eventually, Nature reclaims her rights to the environment. This means the only enduring and tangible records of Long’s work are the photographs and texts the artist made to document them.

Richard Long created four works in the lawns of the Rijksmuseum Gardens. They are in the form of a crescent moon, a cross, an irregular undulating plane, and a zigzagging band. The artist made these sculptures by leaving some areas of the grass unmown, so they contrast with the surrounding mown areas.

This years’ unusually cool spring weather slowed the growth of the newly sown grass. We therefore decided to lay rolls of turf, which fortunately grew more quickly. In the end, the grass reached the perfect length.