LeWitt, Sol

LeWitt, Sol (1928– ). American sculptor, graphic artist, writer, and Conceptual artist. He was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and studied at Syracuse University, New York, where he graduated in fine art in 1949. After serving in the US Army in Japan and Korea, 1951–2, he settled in New York, where he worked as a graphic designer and also painted. His career did not take off until the early 1960s, when he turned to sculpture and became one of the leading exponents of Minimal art. His ‘structures', as he prefers to call them, characteristically involve permutations of simple basic elements, sometimes arranged in box- or table-like constructions. He is also an exponent of Conceptual art; in 1968, for example, he fabricated a metal cube and buried it in the ground at Visser House at Bergeyk in the Netherlands, documenting photographically the object's disappearance (this has also been considered an example of Land art). LeWitt has also written numerous articles on Conceptual art. His other work includes prints in various techniques.