British abstract sculptor Anthony Caro dead at 89

LONDON (Reuters) - Anthony Caro, whose large, brightly painted metal carvings helped make him one of Britain's best-known sculptors, has died at the age of 89, his family said on Thursday.

An assistant to famed sculptor Henry Moore in the 1950s, Caro rose to prominence in the 1960s largely due to the success of an exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in London in 1963.

His work has since been the subject of retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Trajan Markets in Rome, Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo and Tate Britain in London.

In 1992 Caro received Japan's Praemium Imperiale for Sculpture. He was knighted in 1987 and received Britain's Order of Merit in 2000.

On the occasion of opening a new exhibition of his work at the Gagosian Gallery in London in June, Caro told The Independent newspaper that if he gave up working he would be bored. "I hope to carry on for another 10 or 12 years if I'm lucky. It's what I like doing. Old age is a shock, but I still enjoy making the works," he said.

Tate director Nicholas Serota said, "Anthony Caro was one of the outstanding sculptors of the past 50 years alongside David Smith, Eduardo Chillida, Donald Judd and Richard Serra.

"In the 60s he established a new language for sculpture in a series of elegant, arresting, abstract steel sculptures placed directly on the ground."

(Writing by Michael Roddy; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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