Sol LeWitt

Sol LeWitt (Hartford, CT, 1928 – New York, NY, 2007) was an American artist recognized as a founder of both Minimal and Conceptual art. LeWitt completed his BFA at Syracuse University in the 1940s. During the mid-1960s, he worked as a night receptionist at the Museum of Modern Art, where he met and befriended future art critic Lucy Lippard and fellow artists Dan Flavin, Robert Mangold, and Robert Ryman. At that time, LeWitt also started attempting three-dimensional works based on cubes. For these works, he used mathematical approaches and systematically developed variations on his own creations. His body of work concentrates more on the idea behind the art rather than conventional aesthetics, yet is still rich in complexity. Starting with Wall Drawing 1: Drawing Series II 14 (A & B) installed at Paula Cooper Gallery in 1968, LeWitt produced large-scale drawings based on rigorous arrays of designs, shapes, colors, and grids rendered in pencil and paint in conjunction with instructions and diagrams, which needed to be followed in installing the work. LeWitt's works and his innovative methodology of executing art had a profound influence on both his peers and younger artists including Frank Stella and Eva Hesse.