Sol Lewitt

SOL LEWITT (Connecticut, 1928 - New York, 2007).
"Lines in all directions", 1993.
Gouache on paper.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 151 x 110 cm; 175 x 134 cm (frame).

The series "Lines in all directions" responds to Lewitt's creative process in the 90's, when he studied in a methodical and precise way the concept of the straight line as a fundamental graphic component of all human theory. From the beginning of his career, the geometry of the line has been for Lewitt the backbone of his language. It was used in 1968 in his groundbreaking series of wall paintings at the Paula Cooper Gallery on Prince Street in SoHo, where the line was crowned as the basic component of all drawing. This mural project, which repeated the sequence of vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines until a pattern was achieved, laid the foundations of the so-called Conceptual art (a novel movement that gave more importance to the idea of a work of art than to its form) of which Lewitt would be a clear standard-bearer, leaving behind the Minimalism prevailing at the time.

An artist linked to several movements, including conceptual art and minimalism, Sol LeWitt expressed himself mainly through painting, drawing, photography and structures. Born into a Jewish family of Russian immigrants, after receiving a BFA from Syracuse University in 1949 he began a series of trips around Europe, where he was influenced by the great masters of painting. Settling in New York in the fifties, he focused his interest on graphic design, working for Seventeen Magazine. During the following decade the artist worked at the MoMA in New York, another experience that would mark the development of his work. During these years, LeWitt became one of the main representatives of conceptual art, which emphasizes that the idea, and not its physical form, is fundamental. He was one of the pioneers of this movement, as well as one of its most prominent theoreticians, and his work has also been related to minimalism. From 1965 LeWitt will be the subject of hundreds of solo exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world. His works include two- and three-dimensional works, from wall paintings (more than 1,200) to photographs, drawings and sculptures of all kinds, including towers, pyramids, geometric forms and progressions. Sol LeWitt frequently used open, modular structures based on the cube, a key form in the development of his language. In 1978, the Museum of Modern Art in New York dedicated his first retrospective exhibition to him. LeWitt is currently represented in that museum, as well as in the Guggenheim in New York and Bilbao, the Kunstmuseum in Basel, the Palazzo Forti in Verona, the SMAK in Ghent, the Tate Gallery in London, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the National Gallery in Washington, the Metropolitan in New York and the National Gallery of Australia, among many others.