"Grids and Color Plate # 27" by Sol Lewitt

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Sol LeWitt
"Grids and Color Plate # 27" by Sol Lewitt
1979

About the Item

SOL LEWITT (1928 – 2007) Grids and Color Plate #27 Silkscreen in colors on Arches 88 paper, c. 1979 Impression 8 of an edition of 10 with 5 AP Numbered and signed in pencil, lower right Sheet size: 16” x 30” (40.6 x 76.2 cm) Publisher: Rudiger Schottia, Munich, Germany Printer: Jo Watanabe, New York, New York Catalogue Raisonne #: 1979.01 (previously catalogued as S-31) Sol LeWitt was born on September 9th, 1928 in Hartford, Connecticut to Eastern European immigrants. LeWitt received a BFA from Syracuse University in 1949 (where he made his first prints) and then was drafted in the Korean War in 1951. During his service, he made posters for the Special Services and spent time in Japan, where he bought the first works that became the basis of a large personal art collection. In 1953, he moved to New York City, where he studied at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School (now the School of Visual Arts) and worked for Seventeen Magazine, making paste-ups, mechanicals and Photostats. He was then hired as a graphic designer in I.M. Pei’s architecture firm. Sol LeWitt earned a place in the history of art for his leading role in the Conceptual movement. His belief in the artist as a generator of ideas was instrumental in the transition from the modern to the postmodern era. Conceptual art, expounded by LeWitt as an intellectual, pragmatic act, added a new dimension to the artist's role that was distinctly separate from the romantic nature of Abstract Expressionism. LeWitt believed the idea itself could be the work of art, and maintained that, like an architect who creates a blueprint for a building and then turns the project over to a construction crew, an artist should be able to conceive of a work and then either delegate its actual production to others or perhaps even never make it at all. LeWitt's work ranged from sculpture, painting, and drawing to almost exclusively conceptual pieces that existed only as ideas or elements of the artistic process itself. Although conservative critics tended to view LeWitt's work with derision and contempt, many underwent a conversion after viewing the 1978 retrospective held at The Museum of Modern Art. This well-curated exhibition led LeWitt himself to reconsider his work and explore new techniques. As a consequence, other shapes began to figure more prominently in his wall drawings, which also started to incorporate elements of Optical, or Op, Art. Sol LeWitt’s work can be seen in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, MoMA, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, MASS MoCA, the Seattle Art Museum and many more.

Creator:
Sol LeWitt (1928 - 2007, American)
Creation Year:
1979
Dimensions:
Height: 21 in (53.34 cm)Width: 35 in (88.9 cm)Depth: 1.5 in (3.81 cm)
More Editions & Sizes:
Impression 8 of 10Price: $4,950
Medium:
Screen
Movement & Style:
Minimalist
Period:
1970-1979
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Hinsdale, IL
Reference Number:
Seller: 21691stDibs: LU138427464282

Shop All Sol LeWitt

Sol LeWitt

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.

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