Connecticut author, journalist, and former Fairfield University creative writing faculty member Lary Bloom will hold a public reading and book signing for his latest book, Sol LeWitt: A Life of Ideas, at the Fairfield University downtown bookstore on Tuesday, September 24, 2019, at 7 p.m. The free event is open to the public and is co-presented by the University’s MFA in Creative Writing program, the Fairfield University Art Museum, the Pequot Library, and the Department of Visual and Performing Arts.

Born in Hartford, Conn. and raised in New Britain, Sol LeWitt is considered one of the most influential artists of the 20th century and is widely viewed as the founder of conceptual art. A key figure in minimalism and modular art, he believed that the work of the mind is more important than that of the hand, and upended traditional practices of how art is both made and marketed. For his site-specific work, which included enormous and intricate wall drawings and sculptures, he would create the idea and basic plan and then hire young artists to install the pieces. LeWitt championed and financially supported many colleagues and striving artists, including female artists who were often brushed aside in the male-dominated profession. Yet the man himself remained an enigma, as he refused to participate in the culture of celebrity.

In his book, Lary Bloom draws on personal recollections of LeWitt, whom he befriended in the last years of the artist's life, as well as LeWitt's letters, papers, and more than 100 original interviews with family, friends, fellow artists, and art critics. Bloom began researching and writing the biography a few months after LeWitt’s death in 2007, and finished a decade later. The result is an absorbing chronicle and intimate portrait of the artist, the man, and his times, linking the extraordinary arc of his life to his iconic work.

Lary Bloom is a published author, columnist, editor, teacher, playwright, and lyricist. His books include The Writer Within, Letters From Nuremberg, and The Test of Our Times, among others. His plays include Wild Black Yonder, Worth Avenue, and the musical A Woman of a Certain Age. His columns have appeared in The New York Times, Connecticut Magazine, and the Hartford Courant, and he has taught writing at Fairfield University, Yale University, Trinity College, and Wesleyan University.

For more information on Bloom’s upcoming book reading and signing at the Fairfield University Downtown Bookstore, contact program coordinator Elizabeth Hastings at ehastings@fairfield.edu.