Germann Auctionhouse Zurich
Part I: Paintings, Works on Paper and Sculptures
Monday, 19 June 2023, 06:00 pm

Sol LeWitt, Short Brushstrokes (White)

Lot 84

Sol LeWitt, 1928-2007 (US)

Short Brushstrokes (White), 1996

Gouache on paper.
H 1537 mm W 1537 mm.

Signed and dated upper right: S. Lewitt, 1996. Verso typographically titled on label: Short Brushstrokes (White). (Frame).

CHF150'000 / 200'000
EUR150'000 / 200'000
USD160'000 / 220'000

Hammer Price: CHF 140'000

Provenance:
Annemarie Verna Galerie, Zurich (verso with label);
Swiss Private Collection, acquired from the above gallery.

Annotation:

“No matter what form [the artwork] may finally have, it must begin with an idea. It is the process of conception and realization with which the artist is concerned.”¹

In the context of artistic execution, the American conceptual artist Sol LeWitt prioritized the idea and the associated intellectual process over the actual work, thus laying an essential building block for the Minimal Art and Conceptual Art movement in the 1960s. As a trained graphic designer and draftsman he is interested in interior design, forms and structures. Beginning in the 1980s, Sol LeWitt is expanding his clear geometric vocabulary and integrating colorfulness and a free approach to forms into his work. It was also during this period that he began to work with gouache techniques that opened up new creative possibilities due to their watery nature.
Sol LeWitt's late series of "Brushstrokes", created from the 1990s onwards, are dominated by a loose composition that complements the schematic basic language of his early work. The gouache "Short Brushstrokes (White)" from 1996 offered here is characterized by a harmonious color combination that conveys dynamic movement and at the same time retains the structured basis that is central to Sol LeWitt.

¹(Sol LeWitt, "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art", 1967, in: Douglas Dreishpoon. Modern Sculpture. Berkeley 2022, page 229.)