Sol LeWitt

Magnificent in scope, design and scholarship, this essential volume is the first comprehensive LeWitt monograph published since the artist's death, and the first overview since 2000. Besides gathering visual documentation of LeWitt's wall drawings and his sculptures-or "structures" as he preferred-the publication also includes his complete writings; spreads from his artist's books; plus interviews and essays by virtually every artist and author closely associated with LeWitt, among them Lucy Lippard, Rosalind Krauss, Mel Bochner, Dan Graham and Robert Smithson. One of the most important artists of the twentieth century, LeWitt at last receives the definitive treatment of his work in this volume.
In his 1967 "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art," Sol LeWitt set out the fundamental principle of his artistic practice: "In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work.... The idea becomes a machine that makes the art." From the first wall drawing in 1968 until his death in 2007, LeWitt never ceased to develop new "machines," conceiving some 1,200 wall drawings and laying down the foundations of Conceptual and Minimalist art. LeWitt's wall drawings, always installed by assistants, eliminated any intermediary object (such as a canvas) between the work and its support, thereby dovetailing a sensuous material immediacy with a powerful Platonic detachment. His sculptural variations on grids, cubes and pyramids likewise project this moving simplicity and clarity.
Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) was born in Hartford, Connecticut, where he took art classes at the Wadsworth Atheneum. After receiving a BFA from Syracuse University he worked as a graphic designer in the office of architect I.M. Pei. In 1976, LeWitt cofounded the artists' book bookstore Printed Matter in New York, with Lucy Lippard. A retrospective of his wall drawings opened to the public in 2008 at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts, where it will remain on view for 25 years.