American visual artist Sol LeWitt, known for creating vibrant coloured conceptual and minimalist artworks based around geometric shapes and basic lines, has died at the age of 78.

LeWitt, who was born in Hartford, Conn., and lived for years in New York and Italy, died in New York on Sunday from complications of cancer. A private funeral has been scheduled.

A visitor at the Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich, Switzerland, looks at artist Sol LeWitt's Wall Drawings in November 2004. LeWitt died Sunday in New York City at the age of 78.
(Walter Bieri/Keystone/Associated Press)

"It is not an overstatement to say that he was one of the most influential American artists of the 20th century," Joanna Marsh, the curator of contemporary art at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, said Monday.

"His work has had a profound influence on future generations of artists and will continue to have an impact."

LeWitt was the complete opposite of a star artist, eschewing the media spotlight in order to allow his art to speak for itself.

"It's not about the star power, but about the art," said his longtime friend and former curator Andrea Miller-Keller, quoting LeWitt's philosophy to the Hartford Courant newspaper.

LeWitt studied traditional art at Syracuse University and was drafted to serve non-combat positions during the Korean War.

Later, he moved to New York and worked a variety of jobs — including in commercial art and as a night receptionist at the Museum of Modern Art — before his artistic career took off.

He moved to Spoleto, the ancient Italian city in the country's Umbria region, for much of the 1980s in order to escape the New York art world and its critics, eventually returning at the end of the decade.

Over the years, LeWitt's oeuvre included paintings, sculpture, photography and wall drawings. His works were showcased in exhibitions and retrospectives around the globe.

With files from the Associated Press