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1981

On a Blue Ceiling, Eight Geometric Figures: Circle, Trapezoid, Parallelogram, Rectangle, Square, Triangle, Right Triangle, X (Wall Drawing No. 351)

Sol LeWitt

American, 1928 - 2007

LeWitt never touched this ceiling; there is nothing of his handcraft in its production. Rather, what was important to him was the idea--he was an early pioneer of conceptual art. In 1982, the Philadelphia Museum of Art purchased this wall drawing, which means simply that the Museum owns the idea and the right to execute it or to erase it and to allow others to do so, as expressed in a certificate signed by the artist. LeWitt provided the description that is the work's title and specified directions (how many coats and what brand of paint, for example), but the execution of the wall drawing was left to the hands of others.

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