SOL LEWITT
(1928-2007)

Sol LeWitt was an American artist who is widely recognized as a founding figure for various movements including conceptual art and minimalism.

Born in 1928 in Hartford, Connecticut, to a family of Jewish immigrants from Russia, he received a bachelor of Fine Arts from Syracuse University and later studied at the School of Visual Arts

 In the 50’s he set up a studio on the Lower East Side while also pursuing his interest as a graphic designer, including a job in the office of architect I.M. Pei for a year.

Subsequently he also worked a night receptionist and clerk at MoMa, where LeWitt's co-workers included fellow artists Robert Ryman, Dan Flavin, Gene Beery, and Robert Mangold, and the future art critic and writer Lucy Lippard, who all became acquaintances with Lewitt.

He is particularly renown for his "structures," a term he used to describe his three-dimensional work, for his wall drawings, to be executed directly on the wall by people other than the artist himself, according to a set of guidelines or simple diagrams that he provided, and for his gouaches, in which he used opaque water-based paint to produce free-flowing abstract works in contrasting but at the same time warm colors.

Over the course of his career, he would have a profound influence on both his peers and younger artists including Frank Stella and Eva Hesse.

His works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Tate Gallery in London, the Dia Art Foundation in Beacon, NY, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, among others.