Richard Long was born in 1945 in Bristol, England, where he currently lives and works. Since the 1960s, Long has radically redefined the boundaries of sculpture, making use of nature as both his subject and medium. Whether taking nature itself into the gallery, or in transforming the surface of the earth, Long and other land artists have pointed to the importance of our natural surroundings in ways that are utterly different from 18th or 19th century precedents.

13th Street Ellipse (2004) is made of variously sized pieces of red and green/blue slate, positioned on the ground within a predetermined elliptical perimeter. The stones are placed one-by-one within the ellipse in a haphazard pattern. They are fairly evenly spaced, not touching, and each stone is placed upright on its flat, planed side or edge. The work's title comes from the address of the Sperone Westwater gallery in New York City where the artist first installed it in 2004 (415 West 13th Street).