Artist Rooms: Sol LeWitt

Sol LeWitt (1928–2007) revolutionised art in the 1960s with his notion that ‘the idea becomes a machine that makes the art’.

Wall Drawing #1136 Curved and straight colour bands 2004 is composed of bands of vibrant acrylic paint applied directly onto the walls. It has been produced for Tate St Ives by a team of draftspersons, guided by an assistant from the artist’s estate.

The drawing has been adapted from LeWitt’s original plan to work with the complex architecture of the gallery space, while retaining precise details such as the sequence of colours and bands.

Each band is of the same width and there is no area of the wall left unpainted. The work incorporates every primary (red, yellow, blue) and secondary (green, orange, purple) colour, plus grey.