Installation artist Robert Irwin died Oct 25 in La Jolla at 95.

Irwin’s passing is “especially poignant in our community and at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego,” MCASD David C. Copley Director and Chief Executive Kathryn Kanjo said in a statement.

Irwin’s work is “foundational to a certain West Coast minimalism, referred to as Light and Space,” Kanjo said. 

MCASD has the largest holding of Irwin’s artwork including early, abstract canvases, drawings, public art proposals and installations.

Documentation of installation and production of Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow & Blue (2007) in the Jacobs Building at MCASD Downtown as part of Robert Irwin: Primaries and Secondaries. Photo courtesy of MCASD.

Irwin, a longtime San Diego resident, first had a solo exhibition at MCASD in 1969 and a career retrospective in 2007; more than a dozen of his works are on long-term view at MCASD’s La Jolla site on Prospect St., including Irwin’s “Spanish Fan,” a glass sculpture in the outdoor garden and his cuts into the gallery’s windows.

“Irwin’s passing will be felt across the art world,” Kanjo said