GUIDE LINES

1. DRAW A STRAIGHT LINE PARALLEL

TO THE TOP OF THIS PAGE.

2. DRAW A STRAIGHT LINE PARALLEL

TO THE SIDE OF THIS PAGE.

3. DRAW A STRAIGHT LINE

AT A 45º ANGLE TO

THE FIRST TWO LINES.

4. DRAW A STRAIGHT LINE

PERPENDICULAR TO THE THIRD LINE.

GUIDE LINES: SOL LEWITT’S PAGE DRAWINGS

BY GREG HERBOWY

Sol LeWitt, Lines in Color on Color to Points on a Grid, 1978, one from a set of nine screenprints, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT. © Estate of Sol LeWitt, 2022.

ON THIS PAGE USING A PENCIL OR PEN DRAW STRAIGHT LINES FROM ALL VERBS TO THE CORNERS OF THIS PAGE AND STRAIGHT LINES FROM EACH NOUN TO POINTS ON THE FOUR SIDES.

In its spring 1972 issue, Avalanche, a short-lived art magazine based in New York City, published two new works by artist Sol LeWitt (1954 Illustration). Each consisted of a short set of instructions—set in justified, all-capitalized and centered text—for readers to create their own LeWitt artwork by drawing directly on the page.

These “page drawings,” as they were called, were consistent with what art historian David Areford terms “the democratizing spirit” of LeWitt’s work, which stands among the most significant and influential art of the mid- and late-20th century, represented in major museums and public installations around the world. Areford, a professor at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, is the author of Strict Beauty: Sol LeWitt Prints (2020) and editor of Locating Sol LeWitt (2021), both from Yale University Press.

A Korean War veteran and fine-arts graduate, LeWitt (1928 – 2007) attended SVA to study graphic design, and several of that field’s principles can be detected in his minimalist, conceptual art. (He later taught at the College.) His patterning of clean lines and precise forms— often rendered in arrays of bold colors or stark monochromes— have an arresting immediacy, and many LeWitt works were conceived to be executed by following only a few straightforward directions.

Beginning in the late 1960s, LeWitt began writing out these directions so that certain works—like large-scale wall drawings—could be realized without his own hand. In doing so, he made the ideas, rather than their visual manifestations, the art. The flexibility of these instructions varied over the course of his career. LeWitt could be exacting, sometimes providing diagrams along with his written steps. Other ideas were more capacious, opening a range of possibilities for the draftsperson, so that the creations could surprise even their own author.

LeWitt’s page drawings, Areford notes, are similar to some of his wall drawings, prints and drawings on paper from the early 1970s onward, in that the written directions and the resulting imagery are, in the completed work, “thoroughly enmeshed,” with the text becoming a part of the composition. But by distributing them in a magazine, rather than installing them in a gallery or making it on commission for a patron or institution, LeWitt made the art portable, an unexpected gift to anyone who happened across the pages.

“LeWitt wanted as many people as possible to have access to his work, and to be able to afford his work,” Areford says.

In honor of that spirit, and through the generosity of Sofia LeWitt, the artist’s daughter and director of his estate, the Visual Arts Journal is proud to offer four previously unpublished Sol LeWitt page drawings for its readers. ◆

FROM TOP Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing #391, 1983, India and color inks, Collection CAPC musée d’art contemp-orain de Bordeaux, France; Wall Drawing #681C, 1993, India and color inks, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection (installation photos: MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA); Lincoln Center Print, 1998, screenprint, LeWitt Collection, Chester, CT. © Estate of Sol LeWitt, 2022.

ON THIS PAGE DRAW A STRAIGHT LINE FROM EACH LETTER “A” TO THE UPPER LEFT CORNER OF THIS PAGE, FROM EACH “E” TO THE LOWER LEFT CORNER, FROM EACH “I” TO THE UPPER RIGHT, AND FROM EACH “O” TO THE THE LOWER RIGHT.

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Sol LeWitt, Lines in Color on Color to Points on a Grid, 1978, one from a set of nine screenprints, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT. © Estate of Sol LeWitt, 2022.

1. DRAW A STRAIGHT LINE FROM ANY LETTER “A” IN THIS SENTENCE TO THE UPPER LEFT CORNER OF THIS PAGE. 2. DRAW A STRAIGHT LINE FROM ANY LETTER “A” IN THIS SENTENCE TO THE UPPER RIGHT CORNER OF THIS PAGE. 3. DRAW A STRAIGHT LINE FROM ANY LETTER “A” IN THIS SENTENCE TO THE LOWER LEFT CORNER OF THIS PAGE. 4. DRAW A STRAIGHT LINE FROM ANY LETTER “A” IN THIS SENTENCE TO THE LOWER RIGHT CORNER OF THIS PAGE.

Sol LeWitt, Circle with Broken Bands within a Square, 2003, linocut, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT. © Estate of Sol LeWitt, 2022.