Description:

Sol LeWitt
American, (1928-2007)
Brushstrokes in Different Colors in Two Directions, Set of Three, 1994
Etching in colours, on BFK Rives paper, ed. 5/35
Published by Riverhouse Editions, Chicago, Illinois (with their blindstamp), each signed, numbered and dated, framed.

Born in Connecticut to Russian Jewish immigrants, Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) lost his father at a young age and was encouraged to become an artist by his mother. He earned his BFA from Syracuse University and later studied in NYC at the School of Visual Arts where he later taught. There in his studio on the Lower East Side, he stressed the importance of the idea/ concept as the most important element behind a work of art (he was much less interested in the material details related to the execution of a piece of art—or, we could say that he subordinated his hand to his thoughts). Beyond making art, he wrote about the nature of conceptual art and became a pivotal figure in driving the idea (the importance of the idea) into mainstream art discourse. A leading figure of the Conceptual and the Minimalist movements of the 1960s and 1970s, he maintained a prolific practice for several decades that included drawing, printmaking, photography, painting, installation, sculpture, and writing. Today his work is part of the permanent collections of countless museums around he world; for more on LeWitt, see Lary Bloom, Sol LeWitt: A Life of Ideas (Wesleyan University Press, 2019).

Although he was mostly based in NYC, LeWitt also lived in Spoleto (central Italy) in the 1980s where he was surrounded by works made by iconic masters of the 14th and 15th centuries. He acknowledged the influence of their works on his own and said that his work strived to produce something he would not be ashamed to show Giotto—the master painter who was also associated with the idea of perfecting the painting of the essential "O" ("Giotto's O") that would have certainly interested DeWitt thanks to Giotto's idea of mastery/ fixation on a basic shape.

This marvellous set of three prints focuses on DeWitt's love of lines, his obsession with single shapes or ideas that can take on infinite configurations as well as his love of colors and their relationships. Here he has distilled art to its essentials for his viewer; and his brushstrokes exemplify DeWitt's work characterized by serialization, repetition, and progression. Breaking with the overall aesthetics of the past, DeWitt repeated and reconfigured bleeding and blended brushstrokes in a myriad of ways, allowing us to focus on the subtleties behind the idea of lines, colours and progressions.

Published by Riverhouse Editions, Chicago, Illinois (with their blindstamp), each signed, numbered and dated, framed.

  • Dimensions: 46 1/2 x 29 1/4 inches (size of each)
  • Medium: Etching in colours, on BFK Rives paper, ed. 5/35
  • Condition: These are float-mounted and all in very good condition. One of the prints has slipped from its mount, but the bottom edge is not creased or damaged at all by the slip. Overall, excellent condition.

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March 16, 2024 10:00 AM CDT
St. Louis, MO, US

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