2005
While New York City’s art scene in the 1950s and ’60s revolved around Abstract Expressionism, multidisciplinary artist Sol LeWitt paved an alternative path, creating a prolific output of work in the genres of minimalism and, later, Conceptual art.
While LeWitt is perhaps best known for his immense “wall drawings,” he created work in a wide range of media, including drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpture. (However, in a characteristic rebuttal of canonical art history, he referred to these pieces as “structures.”) He also produced several texts, including the seminal Sentences on Conceptual Art (1969).
Born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1928, LeWitt received a BFA from Syracuse University before going to work as a graphic designer for the renowned architect I.M. Pei. He would later work at the book counter at the Museum of Modern Art, where his colleagues included fellow artists. LeWitt’s early exposure to architecture may well have had outsize influence on his subsequent career: He was known for the geometric nature of his work, specifically his fastidious, near-obsessive treatment of the cube, which he rendered repeatedly in various ways throughout his paintings, structures and wall drawings.
In the 1960s, LeWitt showed in several group exhibitions throughout New York and also began to experiment with three-dimensional structures, most modular riffs on the cube shape. His work was included in “Working Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper Not Necessarily Meant to Be Viewed as Art,” curated by Mel Bochner, another leading exponent of Conceptualism.
Later, LeWitt debuted his now-iconic wall drawings, creating work directly on the walls of galleries and show spaces, beginning with pioneering gallerist Paula Cooper’s inaugural show in 1968. The wall drawings became a prime example of LeWitt’s philosophical approach to art, with their installation often carried out by museum staff or curators following precise instructions from the artist.
“The idea,” the artist once said, “becomes a machine that makes the art.” LeWitt continued to produce work until his death in 2007.
Find a collection of original Sol LeWitt art on 1stDibs.
"Grids and Color Plate #43 " by Sol Lewitt
By Sol LeWitt
Located in Hinsdale, IL
SOL LEWITT (1928 – 2007) Grids and Color Plate #43 Silkscreen in colors on Arches 88 paper, c. 1979 Impression 8 of an edition of 10 wit...
Screen
"Grids and Color Plate #44" by Sol Lewitt
By Sol LeWitt
Located in Hinsdale, IL
SOL LEWITT (1928 – 2007) Grids and Color Plate #40 Silkscreen in colors on Arches 88 paper, c. 1979 Impression 8 of an edition of 10 wit...
Screen
"Lincoln Center" by Sol Lewitt
By Sol LeWitt
Located in Hinsdale, IL
SOL LEWITT (1928 – 2007) Lincoln Center Color screenprint on Somerset Satin White,1998. Sheet size: 35 1/2x28 inches, full margins. Signed and numbered 73/108 in pencil, lower ri...
Screen
"Grids and Color Plate #41" by Sol Lewitt
By Sol LeWitt
Located in Hinsdale, IL
SOL LEWITT (1928 – 2007) Grids and Color Plate #41 Silkscreen in colors on Arches 88 paper, c. 1979 Impression 8 of an edition of 10 wit...
Screen
"Dusk in August" from the Portfolio of Nine
By Louise Nevelson
Located in Hinsdale, IL
NEVELSON, LOUISE (1899-1988) "Dusk in August" Lithograph in colors, 1967 Signed, dated, titled, and numbered in pencil lower margin This impression is XVIII/XX Sheet Size: 17” x 22” Published by Hollander’s Workshop with their blindstamp This lithograph by Louise Nevelson was made in collaboration with eight other artists in 1967. The other artists included in this portfolio collaboration are Roy Lichtenstein, Louise Nevelson, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Henry Pearson, Sam Francis, Richard Lindner, and Saul Steinberg. Louise Nevelson is one of American’s foremost artists, Nevelson’s sculpted wood assemblages transcended space and transformed the viewer’s perception of art. She was an American sculptor best known for her monochromatic wooden assemblages. During the 1950s, she began to create unique arrangements contained in wooden frames amassed from a range of found objects—usually woodcuts or bits of furniture—that were then painted a uniform black, white, or gold, as seen in her seminal work Royal Tide I (1960). Louise Nevelson emerged in the art world amidst the dominance of the Abstract Expressionist movement. In her most iconic works, she utilized wooden objects that she gathered from urban debris piles to create her monumental installations - a process clearly influenced by the precedent of Marcel Duchamp's found object sculptures and "readymades." Nevelson’s prints share with her sculpture an interest in silhouetted forms and the layering of elements, but distinguish themselves by their vivid color, depth and movement.. Louise Nevelson experimented in several different print mediums. A 1963 Ford Foundation grant enabled June Wayne of the Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Los Angeles, to extend an invitation to Nevelson. This initial collaboration led to twenty six lithographs, mostly black with dark blue or red, which combined hand-drawn elements with printed lace. Nevelson returned to Tamarind in 1967 to complete sixteen large scale lithographs know as Double Imagery. In these lithographs Nevelson played with landscapes of shadows and reflections using irregular shaped papers and a limited palette of black, red, grey and blue. For her brilliant compositions in varied mediums critics hailed her as the leading sculptor of the twentieth century. A pioneering grand dame of the art works, Nevelson’s iconic persona was characterized by her skilled mixing and matching of ethnic clothing...
Lithograph
The Proper Place
By Takesada Matsutani
Located in Hinsdale, IL
Takesada Matsutani: Biography and Printmaking Work Takesada Matsutani (b. 1937, Osaka, Japan) is a Japanese contemporary artist best known for his involvement with the postwar avant...
Screen
Untitled, from the Kinderstern Portfolio
By Sol LeWitt
Located in Milford, NH
A fine black and white silkscreen geometric print from the Kinderstern Portfolio by American artist Sol LeWitt (1928-2007). LeWitt was was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and attended...
Paper, Screen
Wavy Irregular Bands - Etching by Sol Lewitt - 1996
By Sol LeWitt
Located in Roma, IT
Wavy Irregular Bands is an artwork realized by Sol Lewitt in 1996. Etching and Aquatint on Arches 88 Paper. Edition of 35 + 8 AP + 8 T + 1 BAT + 1 NB. 35 x 89,2 cm. Edition 19/35....
Etching
"Irregular Arcs from Four Sides" signed etching with aquatint by Sol LeWitt
By Sol LeWitt
Located in Boca Raton, FL
"Irregular Arcs from Four Sides" colorful, geometric abstract etching with aquatint in colors on Somerset paper with full margins. Signed and numbered PP 2/3 in pencil on front lower...
Etching, Aquatint
Black and White-Lines of One Inch in Four... - Complete Portfolio - 1971
By Sol LeWitt
Located in Roma, IT
The rare complete portfolio of 16 original black-and-white lithographs, presented in their original box and created between October 27, 1970, and March 1, 1971; all hand-signed by th...
Lithograph
Wavy Irregular Bands - Etching by Sol Lewitt - 1996
By Sol LeWitt
Located in Roma, IT
Wavy Irregular Bands is an artwork realized by Sol Lewitt in 1996. Etching and Aquatint on Arches 88 Paper. Edition of 35 + 8 AP + 8 T + 1 BAT + 1 NB. Edition 19/35. Signed and n...
Etching
Bands Not Straight in Four Directions (Full Set of 4)
By Sol LeWitt
Located in London, GB
Woodcut Each 38 x 86 cms (15 x 33 7/8 ins.) Edition of 75, Set of 4 Each work in set numbered 32/75 Published by Parasol Press Ltd., New York Catalogue r...
Woodcut
