Loopy Doopy (Blue and Purple) 1999

Sol LeWitt is known for his linear and geometric large-scale wall drawings and sculptures, but one of the last series he did before his death in 1997 was the Loopy Doopy series. These large murals and paintings were designed with two pencil taped together, with which LeWitt drew curving, organic shapes and lines. The 80 by 100 feet “Loopy Doopy (Blue and Purple)” was installed in the Embassy Suites lobby in 1999. It took fifty people working in the Brooklyn Navy Yards four months to complete. In 2006, Goldman Sachs bought the hotel, and renovated it to the Conrad Hotel in 2009; LeWitt’s artwork remains the focus of the lobby atrium. The rooftop bar at the Conrad is named Loopy Doopy, after the piece, and the hotel maintains an art collection which includes work by Frank Stella, Jeff Koons, and Elizabeth Peyton. Other paintings from LeWitt’s Loopy Doopy series can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, MoMA, and the Whitney.