Sol Lewitt : Grid Pattern

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Above Image:  Sol LeWitt “Run I,” 1962  / Oil on canvas and wood, LeWitt Collection.
Courtesy Pace Gallery, New York/ at Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas.

Solomon “Sol” LeWitt (1928 – 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including Conceptual art and Minimalism. Grid pattern was central to LeWitt’s art. He used grid as a generative matrix for his artistic production over the span of nearly five decades, from 1960 until his death in 2007.

In my recent trip to Austin, Texas, I saw an exhibition “Converging Lines” on Sol Lewitt, at the Blanton Museum of Art. Two paintings particularly caught my attention. Run [1960] and Run I [1962]. In the painting Run in 1960, the grid pattern can be observed, but it is not developed fully. But in the 1962 painting, the grid structure was fully developed.

 

Run - by Sol Lewitt / 1960

Run – by Sol Lewitt / 1960

 

We can see the evolution of grid pattern in Lewitt’s paintings from “Run” [1960] in the above image, to “Run I” [1962] in the image below.

 

Run I - by Sol Lewitt / 1962

Run I – by Sol Lewitt / 1962

 

Run I is one of Lewitt’s first works to adopt the grid structure, a format that quickly became ubiquitous in his practice.  Here Lewitt uses painting to express the idea of running in three different forms of visual representation: depicting it literally with figures; as text in large stenciled words; and, graphically as arrows. Lewittt modeled the striding figure on the left side of the painting after the photograph of a running naked figure by the 19th century British photographer Eadweard Muybridge’s famous locomotion studies.

 

Lines in Four Directions - by Sol LeWitt / 1985

Lines in Four Directions – by Sol LeWitt / 1985

 

Lines in Four Directions – by Sol LeWitt
1985 / Painted aluminum / 90 X 72 feet
Location: 10 W. Jackson Blvd, Chicago, IL 60604

 

Lines in Four Directions - by Sol LeWitt / 1982 - MCA

Lines in Four Directions – by Sol LeWitt / 1982 – MCA

 

Lines in Four Directions – by Sol LeWitt
1982 / gravel embedded directly into the space
Location: Outdoor installation at Museum of Contemporary Art [MCA], Chicago

 

Wall Drawing # 1111 / Circle with Broken Bands of Color at AIC 2003

Wall Drawing # 1111 / Circle with Broken Bands of Color at AIC 2003

 

Wall Drawing # 1111 [Circle with Broken Bands of Color] 2003
Temporary Exhibit: June 25 through September 19, 2010.
Location: Art Institute of Chicago – Modern Wing’s Griffin Court

 

Complex Form # 6 [1987] - by Sol Lewitt

Complex Form # 6 [1987] – by Sol Lewitt

 

Complex Form # 6 [1987] – by Sol Lewitt
Temporary Exhibit: 2013
Location: Navy Pier

 


 

 


 

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