Sol LeWitt's Wall Drawing 552D, generously donated to the Morgan by the family of Sol LeWitt, is available for public viewing in Gilbert Court. First known for his modular sculptures based on variations on the cube, LeWitt radically transformed the medium of drawing when he began making drawings directly on the wall, in the late 1960s. Over the course of his career, he has conceived more than 1200 wall drawings, in pencil, colored ink, and acrylic. Ultimately painted over, each wall drawing exists as a set of instructions that can be recreated on another wall by another person. First executed in 1987, Wall Drawing 552D presents a motif that the artist described as “not quite a cube”, in which the tilted form produces an illusion of volume while the black border that interrupts it preserves the sense of flatness of the wall.
Sol LeWitt (1928–2007), Wall Drawing 552D, A tilted form with color ink washes superimposed. The walls are bordered by 8" (20 cm) black bands. Color ink wash, dimensions variable. First Drawn by: David Higginbotham, Linda Taylor, Jo Watanabe. First Installation: Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Scotland, December 1987.Gift of the LeWitt Family in Honor of Richard and Ronay Menschel. © 2018 The LeWitt Estate / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.