Style Imitating Art | Wall Drawing No. 652 by Sol LeWitt

About Style Imitating Art

Style Imitating Art is hosted by Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey, Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge, and Marsha of Marsha in the Middle. Style Imitating Art challenges us to draw style inspiration from pieces of art. Every other Monday, one of the hosts, acting as presenter, selects an inspiration image that they will each post on their blogs. The following Monday, each host shares her art inspired outfit. Participants are invited to submit their art inspired outfits to the presenter by 10:00 p.m. EST on the Tuesday following the hosts’ art inspired outfit posts. The following day, Wednesday, the presenter will share all of the submissions on her blog.

You don’t have to be a blogger to join either! In fact, you don’t even have to join but you can still use the art to inspire an outfit just for the sake of trying something different. If you want to share your inspired outfit, we invite you do so on Instagram or any other social media platform that you prefer. Just be sure to tag Salazar, Shelbee, or Marsha or use #TeamLOTSStyle and #StyleImitatingArt so the hosts know you have joined. Go have some fun in your closets and join the SIA challenge next week!

This Week’s Presenter

Marsha chose this week’s inspiration art. She has been training as a docent at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and this large scale installation, which is one of the first things you see as you enter the galleries on the second floor of the museum, has always intrigued her. Of course, I am attracted to all the bright colors so this challenge was fairly easy for me!

The Artwork

Wall Drawing No. 652 by Sol LeWitt

About the Artist: Sol LeWitt

Solomon LeWitt was born on September 9, 1928, in Hartford, Connecticut, to Jewish parents who had emigrated from Russia. His father died when Sol was just 6 years old after which time his mother began taking him to art classes at the Wadsworth Atheneum, a Hartford art museum which is noted for its variety of ancient and contemporary collections.

These classes eventually led to Sol attending Syracuse University and earning his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1949. After graduating, he traveled to Europe where he gained exposure to and knowledge of the Old Master paintings. Upon returning from Europe, LeWitt served in the Korean War, stationed first in California then Japan and Korea. When the war ended in 1953, Sol moved to New York City and established an art studio on Hester Street in the Lower East Side. During this time, he studied at the School of Visual Arts while working as a graphic designer for Seventeen magazine. From 1955-1956, he also worked as a graphic designer in the office of architect Ieoh Ming Pei. He also became interested in photography around this time after he discovered the work of Eadweard Muybridge. In 1960, LeWitt worked as an entry-level night receptionist and clerk at the Museum of Modern Art. All of these early experiences within the art community would heavily influence LeWitt’s later works.

By the late 1960s, Sol was teaching at various New York City institutions including New York University and the School of Visual Arts. In 1968, LeWitt began initiating guidelines and creating simple diagrams which would eventually become his two dimensional wall drawings. He moved to Spoleto, Italy, in 1980 and remained there for most of that decade, returning to Chester, Connecticut, in the late 1980s.

Solomon LeWitt married Carol Androccio in 1982 in Spoleto, Italy. In 1985, the couple had a daughter Eva LeWitt, who is also an artist. Solomon LeWitt died in New York City on April 8, 2007, from cancer. He was 78 years old.

Sol LeWitt is widely regarded as the founder of both Minimal and Conceptual Art. A highly prolific artist, he has created over 1,200 two and three dimensional wall drawings, hundreds of works on paper, and a variety of structures including sculptures, towers, pyramids, and other geometric forms. He also was skilled in architecture and landscaping, contributing designs to the Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek synagogue in Chester, Connecticut; Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Crouse College at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York.

About the Art: Wall Drawing No. 652

Wall Drawing No. 652 was commissioned by the Dudley Sutphin Family and was created and gifted to the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 1990. It is currently on display as you enter the galleries on the second floor of the museum. The work is painted with Lascaux acrylic wash on wall and measures 30 x 60 feet (9.14 x 18.29 meters).

I didn’t do much research about the painting but Marsha provided me with this information.

“There are only four colors used in this entire piece…red, yellow, blue, and grey! The wall was so large that the original piece didn’t work so LeWitt had to add an extra bit at the bottom…LeWitt didn’t paint it, either. He actually sent a detailed drawing of the wall with each section numbered (or lettered) with the appropriate color. Then, art students from nearby Butler University painted it. This piece can also be ‘lent’ to other places.”

Below is a diagram of the work before it was created.

The gallery label reads as follows.

“Wall Drawing No. 652 originally covered three walls surrounding a grand staircase that once connected the ground level with Herron Hall. The latest version is slightly brighter than the original one. Rather than using Pelican ink washes, which have been discontinued since the work first was executed in 1990, LeWitt closely matched the original ink colors with acrylic paints. In the old version, the inks required a coat of varnish, which faded over time. The new acrylic paints are unvarnished and as a result appear more vibrant.

LeWitt, a conceptual artist, once explained: ‘[The] idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.’ LeWitt’s reasoning explains why the re-creation of the original drawing poses no threat to the integrity of the art work. The concept is the work of art, and the end result is ‘perfunctory.’ LeWitt based both versions of the wall drawing on the same complex conceptual diagram. Aside from the change from inks to acrylics, the only difference in the new version is that it needed to be extended downward and outward to accommodate the larger expanse of wall surface.

In the original diagram, LeWitt plotted points randomly across the surface of the paper and then connected them intuitively with lines. A team of assistants (two from LeWitt’s studio, Tomas Ramberg and Sara Heinemann, and five local student technicians: Rachel Eckstein, George Ben Murray, Brittan Fowler, Kate Nickols and Joshua Aaron) then set about the complex and laborious process of plotting the design onto the walls. They also used LeWitt’s diagram to instruct them how to fill each form with particular combinations of red, yellow, blue and gray washes. All of the final colors in Wall Drawing No. 652 are unmixed and resulted from overlapping these pure washes of color.

The first work was funded by the Sutphin family in 1990; the family generously funded the re-creation of the work in 2005.”

Resources/References:

• Wikipedia: Sol LeWitt
• Newfields: Wall Drawing No. 652, Continuous Forms With Color Acrylic Washes Superimposed
• Art in America: On Italian Walls
• W Magazine: Meet Sol LeWitt’s Artist Daughter Eva LeWitt

About My Outfit

I wasn’t worried about finding something bright and colorful in my wardrobe to capture the essence of this giant wall painting. But I was pleasantly surprised at how perfectly this thrifted ruana met my needs. I found this beauty on a thrifting adventure in the fall for $6 and I quickly scooped it up. Then the weather turned too cold and I did not have a chance to wear it until now.

The colors and the geometric pattern really capture the spirit of the painting so I allowed the ruana to be the focal point and built my outfit around it using the blues and orangey yellows that appear in the artwork. It was a simple color blocking technique to create a cohesiveness in my outfit while still remaining pleasingly chaotic and vibrant to reflect my personality.

I have these leggings and this long sleeve tee shirt in a variety of different colors because they are the best layering pieces for my personal style. My denim shirt is an old staple that I wear frequently. I completed my outfit with my black cowgirl boots, a blue and white striped scarf, a light blue knit hat, my April Cornell kantha bead necklace, a thrifted multi strand beaded necklace, and flea market seed bead earrings.

I was really pleased with this outcome and received compliments in the grocery store the day I wore this outfit. Don’t you think this thrifted ruana was just the perfect thing to represent the wall art? Be sure to check out how my co-hosts, Salazar and Marsha, have translated this colorful painting into their outfits.

If you want to play along and create your own outfit inspired by Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawing No. 652, please submit your photos to Marsha (mlrbanks57@gmail.com) by 10:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday, March 11, 2025, and she will feature your outfit in her style gallery on Wednesday, March 12, 2025.

Until then, happy styling! 

Keeping it on the edge, 

Shelbee

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