Sol LEWITT
1928–2007, USA
Sol LeWitt, who was born in Connecticut in 1928, is one of the most influential artists of our time. In the catalog for his 1978 retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Bernice Rose, Curator of Drawings, says that his innovative work drawing directly on walls “was as important for drawing as Pollock’s use of the drip technique had been for painting in the 1950s.”
Although he has worked extensively in drawing and printmaking, he is usually considered to be primarily a sculptor. LeWitt’s most characteristic sculpture works are based on connected open cubes and have titles like “Modular Wall Structure” and “Double Modular Cube.” Because he works with modules and systems, and his early wall drawings are based on grids, he is sometimes described as a Minimal artist, but his work, especially his recent work, is usually colorful and often quite complex. It is also optimistic and beautiful.
A sculptor of modular geometric pieces and a major promoter of Conceptual Art, he was born in Hartford, Connecticut and earned a B.F.A. degree from Syracuse University in 1949. From 1955 to 1956, he worked for architect I.M. Pei. In 1962, he did his first relief sculpture and from 1964, executed the cubed works for which he is most known.
His goal in the conceptual sculpture has been to explore in an impersonal way formulas with which structures are created and to focus on abstract philosophical theories, disassociated from religion and personal emotions.
Many of his sculptures are painted white to direct the viewer to these underlying thought processes rather than to the piece itself. In other words the "concept" is the most important part of the work, and planning it is more important than execution.
The modules are made from wood or metal and are composed of open squares in various combinations, and they reflect a working through of a premise, usually described in the title.
LeWitt began exhibiting in New York in the early 1960s and since then has had many exhibitions in galleries and museums around the world, including the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, Holland; the Kunsthalle, Berne, Switzerland; the Rijksmuseum Kroller-Muller, the Netherlands; the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
LeWitt began exhibiting in New York in the early 1960s and since then has had many exhibitions in galleries and museums around the world, including the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, Holland; the Kunsthalle, Berne, Switzerland; the Rijksmuseum Kroller-Muller, the Netherlands; the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
EXPOSICIONES INDIVIDUALES (SELECCIÓN)
SOLO EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)
2000
A retrospective, San Francisco Museum of modern Art, San Francisco; The Museum of contemporary Art, Chicago; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Sol LeWitt: Gouaches I gravats, Galeria Toni Tàpies - Edicions T, Barcelona
Sol LeWitt: Sculptures and Gouaches, Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston
Sol LeWitt 1971-1999 Etchings, Screenprints, Woodcuts, Crown Point Press, San Francisco;
California and Refusalon and Helene Fried Associate Galleries, San Francisco
Prints by Sol LeWitt, Alva Gallery, New London
Lasting Impressions: Contemporary Prints from the Bruce Brown Collection, Portland Museum of Art, Portland
Sol LeWitt, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Roma
Black Cubes, Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf
1998
Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Palazzo Forti.
1996
Prints: 1970-1995, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
23e Sao Paolo Biennale, Sao Paolo.
Sala de las Alhajas, Madrid.
1995
Wall Drawings, Kukje Galery, Seoul.
Lisson Gallery, London.
John Weber Gallery, New York.
1994
25 Years of Wall Drawings 1969-1994, RENN Espace d'Art Contemporain, Paris.
1993
Structures 1962-1993, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford.
Twenty-Five Years of Wall Drawings, 1968-1993, Addison
Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover.
1992
Drawings 1958-1992, Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague.
1989
Wall Drawings 1984-1989, Kunsthalle, Bern.
1988
Prints, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
1986
Prints, 1970-1986, The Tate Galley, London.
1984
Wall Drawings and Work on paper, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
Structures, Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.
1979
The graphic work of Sol Lewitt, The New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britian.
1978
Prints, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York.
Retrospective, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Wall Drawings: 1968-1981, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford.
1977
The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sidney.
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
1975
Wall drawings, Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
Graphik: 1970-1975, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel.
1976 Wall Drawings, Matrix Gallery, Wadswoth Atheneum, Hartford.
1974
Rijksmuseum Kröller Muller, Otterlo.
Prints, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
Fifty Drawings 1964-74, New York Cultural Center, New York. Itinerant: Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver.
San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco.
Incomplete Open Cubes and Wall Drawings, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.
1973
Museum of Modern Art, Oxford
1972
Kunsthalle Bern, Bern.
1970
Gemeentemuseum, The Hague.
1969
Sol Lewitt: Sculptures and Wall Drawings, Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld.
1965
John Daniels Gallery, New York.
EXPOSICIONES COLECTIVAS (SELECCIÓN)
GROUP EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)
1997
Skulptur Projekte, Münster.
47e Venezia Biennale, Venezia
1996
Passions Privées, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris.
1994
Drawing Rooms: Jonathan Borofsky, Sol Lewitt, Richard Serra, Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth.
1989
Bilderstreit, Rhineside Halls, Koln.
L'Art Conceptuel, Une Perspectiver, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris.
1988
Zeitlos, Hamburger Bahnof, Berlin.
1987
Skulpturr Projekte, Münster.
1985
Overture, Rivoli Castle, Turin.
Chambre des amis, Ghent.
1984
La Grande Parade: Highligts in Painting since 1940. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
1981
Westkunst, Koln.
1976
Drawing Now, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
New York. 200 Years of American Sculpture, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
1969
When Attitudes Become Form, Kunsthalle, Bern.
1968
Cool Art-1967, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield.
Documenta IV, Kassel.
Minimal Art, Gemeentemuseum, The Hague.
1967
Serial Art, Finch college Museum, New York.
1966
Primary Structures, Jewissh museum, New York.
1963
St Mark's Church, New York.
Source: http://rogallery.com