Sol LeWitt

SELECTED WORKS
Broken Color Bands in Four Directions
2005
Linocut

Image size: 9 x 34 1/2 inches (22.9 x 87.6 cm)
Paper size: 18 x 43 1/2 inches (45.7 x 110.5 cm)
Edition of 50, 10 AP, 3 PP
Signed and numbered lower right
(Inventory #38400)

Nine Linocuts
2006
Set of nine linocuts
Image size: 8 x 8 inches each (20.3 x 20.3 cm each)
Paper size: 18 x 18 inches each (45.7 x 45.7 cm each)
Edition of 26
Signed and numbered lower right on each sheet in graphite
(Inventory #33891)
Lines in Four Directions in Color on Color
2005
Set of six linocuts

Image size: 3 3/4 x 12 3/4 inches each (9.5 x 32.3 cm each)
Paper size: 9 7/8 x 18 7/8 inches each (25.1 x 47.9 cm each)
Edition of 75, 8 AP, 4 PP
Signed ‘LeWitt’ and numbered lower right in graphite on each sheet
(Inventory #38395)

Six Cube Variations
2005
Acrylic on lacquer painted base

Edition of 6
8 x 7 1/4 x 33 inches
Each variation: 2 x 2 x 6 inches
Base: 33 x 8 x 1 inches
Signed and numbered on bottom of base
(Inventory #35879)

Whirls and Twirls (black)
2005
Linocut

Image size: 15 7/8 x 46 inches (40.3 x 116.8 cm)
Paper size: 22 1/2 x 52 3/4 inches (57.2 x 134 cm)
Edition of 50, 8 AP, 3 PP, BAT
Signed and numbered lower right in graphite
(Inventory #30712)

Parallel Curves
2000
Lithograph with etching aquatint

Images size:  24 x 24 inches  (61 x 61 cm)
Paper size:  36 x 36 inches  (91.4 x 91.4 cm)
Edition of XXX
Signed and numbered lower right
(Inventory #35756)
Krakow 2000.02

Loopy Doopy, Orange/Blue
2000
Oil-based woodcut

Image size: 16 1/8 x 31 inches (41 x 78.7 cm)
Paper size: 19 x 34 1/8 inches (48.3 x 86.7 cm)
Edition of 65, 5 AP
Signed and numbered lower right
(Inventory #38572)

Arcs and Bands in Color – Three
1999
Silkscreen

Image size: 29 x 35 1/4 inches (73.6 x 89.5 cm)
Paper size: 30 7/8 x 37 inches (78.4 x 94 cm)
Edition of 50, AP 2/20
Signed and numbered lower right in graphite
(Inventory #35730)

Color Bands
2000
Set of eight linocuts

Image size: 24 x 24 inches each (61 x 61 cm each)
Paper size: 29 x 29 inches each (73.66 x 73.66 cm each)
Edition of 75, 10 AP, 3 PP
Signed and numbered lower right on each sheet
(Inventory #38627)

Loops & Curves Red/Yellow
1999
Etching aquatint with color sugar lift aquatint

Image size: 35 3/4 x 22 1/4 inches (90.8 x 56.5 cm)
Paper size: 40 x 26 1/2 inches (101.6 x 67.3 cm)
Edition of 20, 10 AP
(Inventory #38779)

Black Loops & Curves No. 4
1999
Etching with sugar lift aquatint

Image/plate size: 35 7/8 x 35 7/8 inches (101.3 x 101.3 cm)
Paper size: 40 x 40 inches (101.6 x 101.6 cm)
Edition of 10, 10 AP
Signed and numbered lower right
(Inventory #39208)

Wall Drawing #848: A wall bordered and divided vertically and horizontally by a flat gray band into four equal parts, each divided by a curvy line. Top left, divided vertically. Left: glossy black; right: flat white. Top right, divided horizontally. Top: glossy red; bottom: flat orange. Bottom left, divided diagonally from left to right. Left: flat purple; right: glossy blue. Bottom right, divided diagonally from right to left. Left: flat green; right: glossy yellow
1998
Acrylic paint

First drawn by: Sachiko Cho, Kevin Oster
First installation: Jo Watanabe and Sachiko Cho residence, New York
June 1998
Acrylic paint
Installation dimensions are variable
Signed on accompanying certificate
(Inventory #38291)

Irregular Forms (Flat and Glossy Colors) with Black Border
1998
Set of four etchings with aquatint and silkscreen

Image size: 23 x 31 inches each (58.4 x 78.7 cm each)
Paper size: 27 1/2 x 35 inches each (70 x 89 cm each)
Edition of 20, 6 AP
Signed and numbered lower right on each sheet
(Inventory #38788)

Squiggly Lines (Lines Not Straight, Not Touching, Red on Gray)
1997
Unique silkscreen monoprint

Image/paper size:  56 x 56 inches  (142.2 x 142.2 cm)
Annotated and signed ‘3/S.LeWitt’ lower right
(Inventory #27094)

Irregular Bands
1997
Set of three etchings:

Image size (each): 47 x 11 1/2 inches (119.4 x 29.2 cm)
Plate size (each): 47 3/4 x 12 inches (121.3 x 30.5 cm)
Paper size (each): 55 1/2 x 20 1/8 inches (141 x 51.1 cm)
Edition of 36, 8 AP, 3 PP, BAT
Signed and numbered lower right on each sheet
(Inventory #38386)

Cube
1997
Photogravure

Image/plate size: 12 1/8 x 12 1/8 inches (30.8 x 30.8 cm)
Paper size: 15 5/8 x 14 1/8 inches (39.7 x 35.9 cm)
Edition of 25, 5 AP, 3 PP
Signed and numbered lower right
(Inventory #38691)

Wavy Horizontal Lines (Diptych)
1996
Etching with aquatint and photogravure

Overall paper/image size: 28 x 100 inches (71.1 x 254 cm overall)
Edition of 36
Signed and numbered lower right on right sheet
(Inventory #35726)

Bands of color in Different Directions (Diptych)
1996
Etching with aquatint on two sheets of wove paper

Image size: 13 x 75 3/4 inches overall (33 x 192.4 cm overall)
Plate size: 14 x 77 inches overall (35.56 x 195.6 cm overall)
Paper size: 20 x 82 3/4 inches overall (50.8 x 210.2 cm overall)
Edition of 36, 8 AP
Signed and numbered lower right on right sheet
(Inventory #38741)

Eight Pointed Stars
1996
Embossment on hand-dyed and handmade paper in 36 parts

Image/paper size (each): 8 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches (21.6 x 21.6 cm)
Overall size: 54 x 54 inches (137.2 x 138.4 cm)
Edition of 15, 3 AP
Signed and numbered on 36th sheet, verso
(Inventory #39416)

Wavy Lines (Color)
1995
Oil-based woodcut on wove paper

Image/paper size: 35 1/2 x 21 inches (90.2 x 53.3 cm)
Edition of 40, 8 AP, 2 PP
Signed and numbered lower right
(Inventory #38717)

Irregular Bands
1995
Etching with aquatint in five parts

Image size (each): 10 x 7 1/2 inches (25.4 x 19.1 cm each)
Plate size (each): 10 5/16 x 7 3/4 inches (26.2 x 19.7 cm each)
Paper size (each): 14 1/8 x 11 1/2 inches (35.9 x 29.2 cm each)
Edition of 20, 5 AP, 2 PP
Signed ‘LeWitt’ and numbered lower right on each sheet
(Inventory #38859)

Irregular Bands with Colors Superimposed/Irregular Bands Black and Gray
1994
Set of two woodcuts

Image size: 26 x 39 1/2 inches each (66 x 100.3 cm each)
Paper size: 29 1/2 x 42 1/2 inches each (74.9 x 108 cm each)
Edition of 25
Signed and numbered lower right on each sheet in graphite
(Inventory #38667)

Wavy Brushstrokes
1994
Gouache on paper, unique

Paper size: 22 3/16 x 29 3/4 inches (56.4 x 75.6 cm)
Frame size: 26 3/4 x 34 1/8 inches (67.9 x 86.7 cm)
Signed and dated lower right recto
(Inventory #38294)

Brushstrokes in Different Colors in Two Directions
1993
Etching

Image/paper size: 47 x 29 1/2 inches (119.4 x 75 cm)
Frame size: 50 x 32 7/16 inches (127 x 82.4 cm)
Edition of 35
Signed lower right and numbered lower left in graphite
(Inventory #33563)

Lines in Four Directions, with Alternating Color and Gray Bands
1993
Water-based Ukioy-E woodblock

Image size: 20 7/8 x 21 inches (53 x 53.3 cm)
Paper size: 23 x 23 inches (58.4 x 58.4 cm)
Edition of 40, 10 AP
Signed and numbered lower right
(Inventory #38875)

Cube
1991
Gouache on paper, unique

Image size: 20 1/2 x 28 1/4 inches (52.1 x 71.8 cm)
Paper size: 22 x 29 3/4 inches (55.9 x 75.6 cm)
Frame size: 24 5/8 x 32 1/4 inches (62.5 x 81.9 cm)
Signed and dated ‘S. LeWitt 91’ lower right in graphite
(Inventory #30989)

Fifteen Equal Arcs from the Midpoint of the Bottom, with All One, Two, Three and Four part Combinations of Four Colors
1990
Etching with aquatint

Image size: 31 x 12 7/8 inches (78.7 x 32.7 cm)
Paper size: 36 1/2 x 18 1/2 inches (92.7 x 47 cm)
Edition of 30
Signed and numbered lower right
(Inventory #35451)

Complex Form with Black and White Bands
1988
Silkscreen

Image/paper size: 40 x 55 inches (101.6 x 139.8 cm)
Edition of 100, 16 AP, 3 PP
Signed and numbered lower right in graphite
(Inventory #39146)

Wall Piece (16 Modules High)
1988
Three-dimensional painted wood construction

76 1/2 x 5 3/8 x 5 1/4 inches (194.3 x 13.7 x 13.3 cm)
Edition of 20, AP
Signed and numbered
(Inventory #39301)

All One, Two, & Three-Part Combinations of Three Transparent Colors
1985
Color silkscreen

28 inches Image size: 24 x 24 inches (61 x 61 cm)
Paper size: 29 1/2 x 28 inches (74.9 x 71.1 cm)
Edition of 35
Signed and numbered lower right
(Inventory #35435)

Bands of Lines One Inch Wide in Four Directions & Four Colors
1985
Silkscreen

Image/plate size: 23 1/8 x 89 1/8 inches (58.7 x 226.4 cm)
Paper size: 29 x 95 inches (74 x 241.3 cm)
Edition of 20, 6 AP, 2 PP
Signed and numbered lower right
(Inventory #39440)

Double Stars
1983
Set of seven etchings with aquatint

Image size: 12 x 24 inches each (30.5 x 61 cm each)
Paper size: 15 x 27 inches each (38.1 x 68.6 cm each)
Edition of 25, 10 AP
Signed and numbered lower right on each sheet
(Inventory #38445)

A Square Divided Horizontally and Vertically into Four Equal Parts, Each with a Different Direction of Alternating Parallel Bands of Lines
1982
Woodcut

Image size: 24 x 24 inches (61 x 61 cm)
Paper size: 30 x 30 inches (76.2 x 76.2 cm)
Edition of 40
Signed and numbered lower right in graphite
(Inventory #36528)

Eight Squares with a Different Color in Each Half Square (Divided Horizontally and Vertically)
1980
Color silkscreen

Image size: 15 x 31 inches (38.1 x 78.7 cm)
Paper size: 22 x 38 inches (55.9 x 96.5 cm)
Edition of 40
Signed and numbered lower right in graphite
(Inventory #37631)

Cube
1979
Paint on aluminum

Edition of 35
11 x 11 x 11 inches (27.9 x 27.9 x 27.9 cm)
Engraved stamped signature, edition and date with fabricators stamp on bottom
(Inventory #33179)

The Location of Fourteen Points
1975
Etching with aquatint

Image size: 7 7/8 x 7 1/4 inches (20 x 18.4 cm)
Paper size: 9 1/8 x 9 1/8 inches (23.2 x 23.2 cm)
Signed and numbered lower right in graphite
Edition of 25, 10 AP
(Inventory #33821)

Arcs from Sides or Corners, Grids & Circles
1972
Set of eight silkscreens

Image size: 13 7/8 x 13 7/8 inches each (35.2 x 35.2 cm each)
Paper size: 14 7/8 x 14 7/8 inches each (37.8 x 37.8 cm each)
Edition of 100, 24 AP
Signed lower right and numbered lower left on each sheet
(Inventory #38714)

Horizontal Composite (Color)
1970
Silkscreen

Image size: 12 x 33 3/4 inches (30.5 x 85.7 cm)
Paper size: 18 x 40 inches (45.7 x 101.6 cm)
Frame size: 21 x 43 inches (53.3 x 109.2 cm)
Edition of 150
Signed lower right and numbered lower left in graphite
(Inventory #32894)

Additional Information

Sol LeWitt was born on September 9th, 1928 in Hartford, Connecticut to Eastern European immigrants. His father, a doctor and inventor, died when he was 6. Soon after, he moved with his mother, a nurse, to live with an aunt in New Britain, Connecticut. His mother took him to art classes at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford and he would draw on wrapping paper from his aunt’s grocery store.

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.

In 1960, he took an entry-level job at the Museum of Modern Art, where he met Dan Flavin, Robert Ryman, Lucy Lippard and Robert Mangold. Together, through the Sixteen Americans exhibition, they were introduced to the work of Jasper Johns and Frank Stella and Robert Rauschenberg.

LeWitt was also interested in Russian Constructivism, with its engineering aesthetic and the idea of making utilitarian art in an industrialized age. However, the work that influenced him the most was Eadweard Muybridge’s serial photography, sequential studies of people and animals in motion, which he came across in a book that somebody had left in his apartment. LeWitt’s work from the early 1960s, works on canvas coated with thick gestural oil paint, each featured one of Muybridge’s figures in motion.

LeWitt’s three dimensional structural works from the mid to late 1960s such as Serial Project, Three Part Variations on Three Different Cubes, and hundreds of sculptures made of open white cubes – grew out of this interest in the serial. He applied the same system of permutations and variations in his prints, drawings on paper and drawings on the wall.

Sol LeWitt executed his first wall drawing in 1968 at Paula Cooper Gallery in New York. Like many of the wall drawings after this, Wall Drawing #1 consisted of a system of parallel lines drawn with black pencil on a white wall in four directions (vertical, horizontal, diagonal left, and diagonal right.) By drawing directly on the wall, the work’s duration was limited and ultimately the wall drawings are painted over. It also allowed him to achieve his objective of reinforcing flatness and making a work as two-dimensional as possible. Wall Drawing #1 also emphasized the premise of the artwork over the final product. In a 1969 article for Studio International, LeWitt wrote, Two-dimensional works are not seen as objects. The work is a manifestation of an idea. It is an idea and not an object. Without the traditional support of canvas or paper, wall drawings exist as a set of instructions and can be installed again and again.

This radical shift to drawing on the wall, followed the publication of Paragraphs on Conceptual Art, where he wrote, “When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes the machine that makes the art.”

Although LeWitt drew Wall Drawing #1 on Paula Cooper’s gallery wall himself, he soon found that a team of assistants could oftentimes install his work better. He believed that the idea of his work superseded the art itself, as curator Andrea Miller-Keller said, “The essence of LeWitt’s work is the original idea as formulated in the artist’s mind.” He soon took this and applied it to the print medium through numerous projects with numerous techniques.

In the late 70s, shortly after his first retrospective the at Museum of Modern Art and after numerous years of exhibiting in Italy, LeWitt moved to Spoleto, Italy. There he saw frescos by Fillippo Lippi, Massaccio, Fra Angelico and Giotto’s in local churches, museums and convents. In 1983, LeWitt’s art underwent a major transformation and he began to experiment with India ink and color ink washes, a nod to the local Trecento and Quattrocento works. He acknowledged the influence of these masterpieces on his own drawings, and went so far to say, that in his work he strived to produce something [he] would not be ashamed to show Giotto.”

In the exhibition catalogue for Think with Senses Feel with Mind, Art in the Present, part of the 2007 Venice Biennale, Robert Storr wrote that LeWitt proved over and over again that the strict, systematic realization of a singular working premise is bound to produce results that will surprise both the maker and the viewer by exceeding expectation and giving eye-and-mind expanding physical dimensions to mental abstractions. Until 2033, LeWitt’s wall drawings are the subject of a solo exhibition titled Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

Sol LeWitt died in 2007 in New York City.