The American artist Richard Artschwager, who blurred the lines between minimalism, conceptual art, and pop art, has died at 89 . The news was confirmed late Saturday afternoon by Gagosian Gallery, which represents Artschwager. The artist’s death comes just a few days after his second Whitney Museum retrospective closed in New York. 

Artschwager was born to immigrant parents in Washington, D.C. in 1923, and spent much of his childhood and adolescence in New Mexico. He studied chemistry at Cornell and fought in World War II before becoming an artist in the late 1940s, after using GI Bill funds to study at the Amédée Ozenfant’s School of Fine Arts in New York. He supported himself as a young artist with odd jobs, eventually designing and producing furniture. He experience with furniture later influenced the wood and formica sculptures for which he is now well-known.

Artschwager’s first New York show was in 1959, and by 1965 he was represented by famed dealer Leo Castelli. Artschwager stayed with Castelli for 25 years before moving to Mary Boone Gallery in 1991 (where he met his wife, Ann), and later to Gagosian and the David Nolan galleries later in the 1990s.