Sol LeWitt

Sol LeWitt famously stressed the importance of the ideas that animated his artwork over the particulars of their execution. A leading figure of the Conceptual and Minimalist movements, he maintained a practice that included drawing, printmaking, photography, painting, installation, sculpture, and writing. He is perhaps best known for simple, geometric drawings and wall paintings and for his “structures”: modular sculptures of cubed forms, variously constructed from steel, polyurethane, wood, or concrete. LeWitt also received attention for his writings on the nature of Conceptual art. To “install” his wall paintings, contemporary exhibition spaces must follow a set of instructions the artist left behind. LeWitt received his BFA from Syracuse University. After graduating, he took classes at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School (now the School of Visual Arts), worked as a graphic designer and, later, worked shifts at the Museum of Modern Art alongside artists such as Dan Flavin and Robert Mangold. His work has been exhibited in a number of institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, MoMA PS1, the Centre Pompidou, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the Pérez Art Museum Miami; it also belongs in the collections of countless museums including the Tate, the Guggenheim Museum, Dia Beacon, and the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris.