was an early fall day, probably a Saturday, as I recall, when we were in 9th or 10th grade. Ten or a dozen schoolmates—boys only of course—would gather in Walnut Hill Park for a game of touch football….
One day, for the first time, Sol showed up to play. I was surprised because he was conspicuously non-athletic, but I was glad to see him, as were the others. He was on the opposing team from mine and like me was a lineman, blocking and tagging the runner when we could. He seemed to be not quite in a flow of play, doubtless because he was the only one of us wearing eyeglasses, and they were of a definitely unfashionable rimless kind.
It started to rain lightly, but of course we kept playing, like real football teams do. Our hair, our clothing, our shoes, the grass, the ball all got wet, but we played on. Then on the next play, Sol and I were on the scrimmage line facing each other, and I noticed that the rain had coated his glasses with water, and I thought, “Heck, how can he SEE?” Yet he was still in there, playing with all his heart. My esteem for Sol went up.
Then, after the game was over, Sol invited me to his home, and I was pleased and accepted. It was an unpretentious apartment in a small building on a side street near the park. We were greeted by his mother, a kindly woman who continually gave me a blissful, serene smile and served me and Sol a cup of hot chocolate and a pastry with nuts and apples. She didn’t say much but seemed very pleased that Sol had invited me to their home. I didn’t say long because I had to get home.
It was only when we were in the army and became solid friends, Sol told me his mother was a nurse and that his father, a doctor, had died when was just starting school. I thought then that maybe [the reason] Mrs. LeWitt smiled so much was that she was pleased that Sol had a friend.34
However, Solly’s schoolwork during this time was certainly not up to Sophie’s expectations, as she held onto her hopes that he would eventually decide to go to medical school. His final grades for his junior year, 1943–44, were:
English: B
Physics: C
French 1: C
Chemistry: B
American history: A
His grades improved somewhat in his senior year, when he had the chance to take electives—including, for the first time, the field in which he would excel:
English (college prep): B
Physical education: A
Physics: C
Art: A
Latin American history: A35
The report cards reveal his two lasting passions: art and history. What they don’t necessarily show was his emerging interest in international affairs. At some point in high school, he entered an essay contest. How he fared isn’t clear, but essay is still in existence. In it is a deep sense of humility and questioning that would become one of LeWitt’s trademarks:
Not the kind that preaches that everyone should love me, but that which teaches each to love all…. A tolerant person sees at once all sides of a question and at the same time sees the right one. That which benefits the greatest number of people. A tolerant person does not consider himself any better than his associates and his race and nation no better than his neighbors. Freedom and peace follow naturally from tolerance. It sounds simple but it is the most difficult of things to do. Men’s minds are hard to change, especially when they live in the past.36
The essay is astonishing for its maturity and the glimpse it provides into the artist’s career and personal values. In arguing for the spirit of tolerance, he refers to what would become a lifelong quest. In addition, a reader of the entire essay would see a fierce originality in it—unlike the bar mitzvah speech a few years earlier, which seemed more scripted. Solly understood complexity but at the same time argued that complexity should be no impediment to righteous action. This is early evidence of his independent thought and an indication, in his assertion that he doesn’t need to be loved by everyone, that he understands going along with the crowd can take an unthinking person in the wrong direction.
When Solly entered the essay contest, friends assumed that if he won he wouldn’t want to read his work aloud at an assembly. But he proved to be no recluse.
Like most of the Jewish male students at New Britain Senior High, Solly joined a Jewish club. His had about forty members. Jaffe, one of the members, recalled:
Every Monday we had a meeting in the Main Street office of the B’nai B’rith which sponsored us. You could play pool, cards. We had a Ping-Pong table, and it was a place where we could meet and talk … not much else to do in the middle of the war. Nobody had [a] car, gasoline was rationed, so very little dating was done. Even if you had a car, the kids didn’t have driver’s license[s]. The ration was something like three gallons per week. We had parties—very few. Later on we had basketball uniforms and played other sports. Sol played in some of it. In baseball and football, he was a not a star.37
And, Jaffe says, Sol never wanted to play quarterback or be the leader. That was the quality that led to a deep misunderstanding between the two that threatened their friendship. The annual election for officers of the club was coming up. To the surprise of everyone, particularly Jaffe, Sol decided to run for president against his cousin, David Sokol, and asked for Mort’s vote. As Jaffe recalled: “I told him I couldn’t do it. He asked me why not. I told him, ‘I never thought you would run. And I already promised your cousin my support.’ Well, Sol lost by two votes. If I had voted for him, it would have been a tie. After the election he came over to me and was very angry. He said, ‘Well, you’ll never be president.’ Then a week later, I came to a poker game. He gave me a dirty look as if he was going to kick me out, but he didn’t.”38
Jaffe would go on to become a professor of marketing at Baruch College, part of the City University of New York. He kept in touch with his old friend through the years and sometimes expressed surprise that LeWitt would want to be so famous. That had not necessarily been his goal when he applied for college at sixteen (the age at which he graduated from New Britain Senior High). His mother; his much older cousins, Bella and Nellie; and other relatives urged him to follow his late father’s path and go to medical school, but he had no interest in it and instead wanted to pursue art. He once told an interviewer, “I couldn’t think of anything else.”39 But that response downplayed or ignored the passion and cleverness he had shown in art classes. A family compromise was finally reached: LeWitt would apply to Syracuse University, where he would get a solid education, but where there was a respected school of art.
On May 29, 1945, the New Britain seniors graduated. A special edition of the Red and Gold Review, the school newspaper, featured details about the commencement, photographs of and pieces by seniors, and local advertisements. On page 3 were twenty photos of seniors who received scholarships and awards. LeWitt’s photo is in the third row, second from the left, and the paper reported that he had received the Parker Reading Prize, “given through a competitive examination under the supervision of the head of the English department.”40
There is also a quote from LeWitt: “Let us search continually for Beauty. For it is only in Beauty that we shall find full happiness. If we are unable to find Beauty in the Arts, we should keep searching and perhaps it will appear in the commonplace. Let us always try to enrich our thoughts through new experiences: for thought is really Life’s only reality.”41
Here, then, is direct evidence of his ultimate pursuit—art as thought
