LeWitt, Sol

Sol LeWitt was born September 9, 1928, in Hartford, Connecticut, and attended Syracuse University, receiving his BFA in 1949. After serving as a graphic artist during the Korean War, LeWitt moved to New York in 1953, where he worked as a draftsman for architect, I.M. Pei. Later, taking an entry-level job at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, LeWitt worked with fellow artists Robert Ryman, Dan Flavin, and Robert Mangold.

LeWitt helped establish Conceptual Art and Minimalism of the post war era, creating drawings and structures (a term that the artist preferred to sculpture) by reducing art to the most basic shapes and colors.

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, gave LeWitt his first retrospective, Sol LeWitt, in 1978-79 and then in 1996 organized a traveling survey exhibition, Sol LeWitt Prints: 1970 – 1995. The exhibition traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

LeWitt has been included in numerous museum exhibitions, including the Tate Gallery, London; Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; MASS MoCA, Massachusetts; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.