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The idea for Cubic modular piece no. 3 originated in 1965 when Sol LeWitt constructed a piece in wood which was exhibited at the Dwan Gallery, New York, in 1966.¹ This early work, the first or no. 1 in the series, was an open grid of cubes, four cubes high and four wide. It has since disappeared.

There are two subsequent configurations of the cubic modular piece, both made in steel and painted white. Cubic modular piece no. 2, ascribed the date 1966, is an L-shaped configuration and is now in the collection of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Australian National Gallery's Cubic modular piece no. 3 is a slightly larger but more direct extension of the format of the original wood piece, being five cubes high by six wide.²

The Gallery owns a second, later, work by Sol LeWitt: Wall drawing no. 380 a-d: isometric figures (cube, rectangle, trapezoid, parallelogram 1982.

Michael Lloyd & Michael Desmond European and American Paintings and Sculptures 1870-1970 in the Australian National Gallery 1992 p.376.

1. John Weber (director of Dwan Gallery, New York, at the time), correspondence with the Gallery, 1 March 1986.
2. The paint is not baked enamel as previously assumed but a synthetic polymer paint sprayed on.

Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 2010