Louise Berliawsky Nevelson
Encyclopedia
Louise Nevelson was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. Born in Czarist Russia
, she emigrated with her family to the United States in the early 20th century when she was three years old. Nevelson learned English at school, as she spoke Yiddish
at home. By the early 1930s she was attending art classes at the Art Students League of New York
, and in 1941 she had her first solo exhibition. A student of Hans Hoffman and Chaim Gross
, Nevelson experimented with early conceptual art
using found object
s, and dabbled in painting and printing before dedicating her lifework to sculpture. Usually created out of wood, her sculptures appear puzzle-like, with multiple intricately cut pieces placed into wall sculptures or independently standing pieces, often 3-D. A figure in the international art scene, Nevelson was showcased at the 31st Venice Biennale
. Her work is seen in major collections in museums and corporations. Louise Nevelson remains one of the most important figures in 20th-century American sculpture.
, Kiev Oblast
, Russian Empire
, to Minna Sadie and Isaac Berliawsky, a contractor and lumber
merchant. Even though the family lived comfortably, Nevelson's relatives had begun to leave the Russian Empire for America in the 1880s. The Berliawskys had to stay behind as Isaac, the youngest brother, had to care for his parents. While still in Europe, Minna gave birth to two of Nevelson's siblings: Nathan (born 1898) and Anita (1902). On his mother's death, Isaac moved to the United States in 1902. After he left, Minna and the children moved to the Kiev
area. According to family lore, young Nevelson was so forlorn about her father's departure that she became mute for six months.
In 1905 Minna and the children emigrated to the United States, where they joined Isaac in Rockland, Maine
. Isaac initially struggled to establish himself there, suffering from depression while the family settled into their new home. He worked as a woodcutter
before opening a junkyard. Eventually he became a successful lumberyard owner and realtor. The family had another child, Lillian, in 1906. Nevelson was very close to her mother, who suffered from depression, a condition believed to be brought on by the family's migration from Russia and their minority status as a Jewish family living in Maine. Minna overly compensated for this, dressing herself and the children up in clothing "regarded as sophisticated in the Old Country". Her mother wore flamboyant outfits with heavy make-up; Nevelson described her mother's "dressing up" as "art, her pride, and her job", also describing her as someone who should have lived "in a palace".
Nevelson's first experience of art was at the age of nine at the Rockland Public Library
, where she saw a plaster cast
of Joan of Arc
. Shortly thereafter she decided to study art, taking drawing in high school, where she also served as basketball captain. She painted watercolor interiors
, in which furniture appeared molecular in structure, rather like her later professional work. Female figures made frequent appearances. In school, she practiced her English, her second language, as Yiddish was spoken at home. Unhappy with her family's economic status, language differences, the religious discrimination of the community, and her school, Nevelson set her sights on moving to high school in New York.
She graduated from high school in 1918, and began working as a stenographer at a local law office. There she met Bernard Nevelson, co-owner with his brother Charles of the Nevelson Brothers Company, a shipping business. Bernard introduced her to his brother, and Charles and Louise Nevelson were married in June 1920 in a Jewish wedding
at the Copley Plaza Hotel
in Boston. Having satisfied her parent's hope that she would marry into a wealthy family, she and her new husband moved to New York City
, where she began to study painting, drawing, singing, acting and dancing. She also became pregnant, and in 1922 she gave birth to her son Myron (later called Mike), who grew up to be a sculptor. Nevelson studied art, despite the disapproval of her parents-in-law. She commented: "My husband's family was terribly refined. Within that circle you could know Beethoven, but God forbid if you were Beethoven."
In 1924 the family moved to Mount Vernon, New York
, a popular Jewish area of Westchester County
. Nevelson was upset with the move, which removed her from city life and her artistic environment. During the winter of 1932–1933 she separated from Charles, unwilling to becoming the socialite wife he expected her to be. She never sought financial support from Charles, and in 1941 the couple divorced.
and Kimon Nicolaides
at the Art Students League. Nevelson credited an exhibition of Noh
kimono
s at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
as a catalyst for her to study art further. In 1931 she sent her son Mike to live with family and went to Europe, paying for the trip by selling a diamond bracelet that her now ex-husband had given her on the occasion of Mike's birth. In Munich
she studied with Hans Hofmann
before visiting Italy and France. Returning to New York in 1932 she once again studied under Hofmann, who was serving as a guest instructor at the Art Students League. She met Diego Rivera
in 1933 and worked as his assistant on his mural Man at the Crossroads
at Rockefeller Plaza. The two had an affair which caused a rift between Nevelson and Rivera's wife, Frida Kahlo
, an artist Nevelson greatly admired. Shortly thereafter, Nevelson started taking Chaim Gross
's sculpture classes at the Educational Alliance. She continued to experiment with other artistic mediums, including lithography
and etching
, but decided to focus on sculpture. Her early works were created from plaster
, clay
and tattistone. During the 1930s Nevelson began exhibiting her work in group shows. In 1935, she taught mural painting at the Madison Square Boys and Girls Club in Brooklyn
as part of the Works Progress Administration
(WPA). She worked for the WPA in the easel
painting and sculpture divisions until 1939. For several years, the impoverished Nevelson and her son walked through the streets gathering wood to burn in their fireplace
to keep warm; the firewood she found served as the starting point for the art that made her famous. Her work during the 1930s explored sculpture, painting and drawing. Early ink and pencil drawings of nudes show the same fluidity seen in the works of Henri Matisse
. Nevelson also created terra-cotta semi-abstract animals and oil painting
s.
owned by local shoeshiner
Joe Milone. She displayed the box at the Museum of Modern Art
, bringing her the first major attention she received from the press. An article about her appeared in Art Digest in November 1943. In the 1940s, she began producing Cubist figure studies
in materials such as stone, bronze
, terra cotta
, and wood. In 1943, she had a show at Norlyst Gallery called "The Clown as the Center of his World" in which she constructed sculptures about the circus from found object
s. The show was not well received, and Nevelson stopped using found objects until the mid-1950s. Despite poor reception, Nevelson's works at this time explored both figurative abstracts inspired by Cubism and the exploitative and experimental influence of Surrealism
. The decade provided Nevelson with the materials, movements, and self-created experiments that would mold her signature modernist style in the 1950s.
programs in the Great Neck
public school system. Her own work began to grow to monumental size, moving beyond the human scale
sized works she had been creating during the early 1940s. Nevelson also visited Latin America
, and discovered influences for her work in Mayan
ruins and the stele
s of Guatemala
. In 1955 Nevelson joined Colette Roberts' Grand Central Modern Gallery, where she had numerous one-woman shows. There she exhibited some of her most notable mid-century works: Bride of the Black Moon, First Personage, and the exhibit "Moon Garden + One", which showed her first wall piece, Sky Cathedral, in 1958. The 1958 series of exhibitions were described by critic Hilton Kramer
as "remarkable and unforgettable." That year the Museum of Modern Art
purchased one of Nevelson's Sky Cathedral works, and in 1959 Nevelson was included in MoMA's Sixteen Americans exhibition. During this period, she painted her wood black and put on entirely black shows. In the early 1960s, she began creating white and gold pieces, and enclosing her small sculptures in wooden boxes. The change in scale of her sculptures, the influence of Latin American ancient art, and her gallery activity during this time is credited with bringing "Nevelson's sculpture in league with the grand scale of Abstract Expressionist painting, as well as the earlier mural painting of Rivera."
From 1957 to 1958, she was president of the New York Chapter of Artists' Equity and in 1958 she joined the Martha Jackson Gallery, where she was guaranteed income and became financially secure. That year, she was photographed and featured on the cover of Life
. In 1960 she had her first one-woman show in Europe at Galerie Daniel Cordier in Paris. Later that year a collection of her work, grouped together as "Dawn's Wedding Feast", was included in the group show, "Sixteen Americans," at the Museum of Modern Art alongside Robert Rauschenberg
and Jasper Johns
. In 1962 she made her first museum sale to the Whitney Museum of American Art
, who purchased the black wall, Young Shadows. That same year, her work was selected for the 31st Venice Biennale
and she became national president of Artists' Equity, serving until 1964.
In 1962 she left Martha Jackson Gallery, had a brief stint at the Sidney Janis Gallery, and then joined Pace Gallery
in the fall of 1963. Nevelson had shows at Pace about every two years until the end of her career. In 1967 the Whitney Museum hosted the first retrospective of Nevelson's work, showing over one hundred pieces, including drawings from the 1930s and contemporary sculptures. In 1964 she created two works: Homage to 6,000,000 I and Homage to 6,000,000 II as a tribute to victims of The Holocaust
. Nevelson hired several assistants over the years: Teddy Haseltine, Tom Kendall, and Diana Mackown, who helped in the studio and handled daily affairs. By this time, Nevelson had solidified commercial and critical success.
to create her first outdoor sculpture. After completion of her first outdoor sculptures, Nevelson stated: "Remember, I was in my early seventies when I came into monumental outdoor sculpture ... I had been through the enclosures of wood. I had been through the shadows. I had been through the enclosures and come out into the open." Nevelson also praised new materials like plexiglas and cor-ten steel, which she described as a "blessing". She embraced the idea of her works being able to withstand climate change and the freedom in moving beyond limitations in size. These public artworks were created by the Lippincott Foundry. Nevelson's public art commissions were a monetary success, but art historian Brooke Kamin Rapaport states that these pieces were not Nevelson's strongest works, and that Nevelson's "intuitive gesture" is not evident in the large steel works.
In 1973 the Walker Art Center
curated a major exhibition of her work, which traveled for two years. In 1975 she designed the chapel of St. Peter's Lutheran Church in midtown Manhattan
. When asked about her role as a Jewish artist creating Christian-themed art, Nevelson stated that her abstract work transcended religious barriers. During the last half of her life, Nevelson solidified her fame and her persona, cultivating a personal style for her "petite yet flamboyant" self that contributed to her legacy: dramatic dress
es, scarves and large false eyelashes. When Alice Neel
asked Nevelson how she dressed so beautifully, Nevelson replied "Fucking, dear, fucking", in reference to her sexually liberated lifestyle. The designer Arnold Scaasi created many of her clothes. Nevelson died on April 17, 1988.
, David Smith
, Theodore Roszak
– were welding
metal to create their large-scale sculptures. Nevelson decided to go in the opposite direction, exploring the streets for inspiration and finding it in wood. Nevelson's most notable sculptures are her walls; wooden, wall-like collage
driven reliefs consisting of multiple boxes and compartments that hold abstract shapes and found objects from chair legs to balusters. Nevelson described these immersive sculptures as "environments". The wooden pieces were also cast-off scraps, pieces found in the streets of New York. While Marcel Duchamp
caused uproar with his Fountain
, which was not accepted as "art" at the time of its release due to Duchamp's attempt to mask the urinal
s true form, Nevelson took found objects and by spray painting them she disguised them of their actual use or meaning. Nevelson called herself "the original recycler
" owing to her extensive use of discarded objects, and credited Pablo Picasso
for "giving us the cube" that served as the groundwork for her cubist-style sculpture. She found strong influence in Picasso and Hofmann's cubist ideals, describing the Cubist movement as "one of the greatest awarenesses that the human mind has ever come to." She also found influence in Native American
and Mayan art, dreams, the cosmos
and archetype
s.
As a student of Hans Hofmann she was taught to practice her art with a limited palette, using colors such as black and white, to "discipline" herself. These colors would become part of Nevelson's repertoire. She spray painted her walls black until 1959. Nevelson described black as the "total color" that "means totality. It means: contains all ... it contained all color. It wasn't a negation of color. It was an acceptance. Because black encompasses all colors. Black is the most aristocratic color of all. The only aristocratic color ... I have seen things that were transformed into black, that took on greatness. I don't want to use a lesser word." In the 1960s she began incorporating white and gold into her works. Nevelson said that white was the color that "summoned the early morning and emotional promise." She described her gold phase as the "baroque
phase", inspired by the idea being told as a child that America's streets would be "paved with gold," the materialism and hedonism of the color, the sun, and the moon. Nevelson revisited the Noh
robes and the gold coin
collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
for inspiration.
Nevelson explored three themes in her work: complicated past, factious present, and anticipated future. A common symbol that appears in Nevelson's work is the bride
, as seen in Bride of the Black Moon (1955). The symbol of the bride referred to Nevelon's own escape from matrimony in her early life, and her own independence as a woman throughout the rest of her life. Her Sky Cathedral works often took years to create; Sky Cathedral: Night Wall, in the collection of the Columbus Museum of Art
, took 13 years to build in her New York City studio. On the Sky Cathedral series, Nevelson commented: "This is the Universe, the stars, the moon – and you and I, everyone."
, Louise Nevelson Plaza, is located in downtown New York City and features a collection of works by Nevelson. Nevelson donated her papers in several installments from 1966 to 1979. They are fully digitized and in the collection of the Archives of American Art
. The Farnsworth Art Museum, in Nevelson's childhood home of Rockland, Maine
, houses the second largest collection of her works, including jewelry she designed. In 2000, the United States Postal Service
released a series of commemorative postage stamps in Nevelson's honor. The following year, friend and playwright Edward Albee
wrote the play Occupant as a homage to the sculptor. The show opened in New York in 2002 with Anne Bancroft
playing Nevelson, but it never moved beyond previews owing to Bancroft's illness. Nevelson's distinct and eccentric
image has been documented by photographers such as Robert Mapplethorpe
, Richard Avedon
, Hans Namuth
and Pedro E. Guerrero
.
Upon Nevelson's death her estate was worth at least $100 million. Her son, Mike Nevelson, removed 36 sculptures from her house. Documentation showed that Nevelson had bequeathed these works, worth millions, to her friend and assistant of 25 years Diana MacKown, yet Mike Nevelson claimed otherwise. Proceedings began about the estate and will
, which Mike Nevelson claimed did not mention MacKown. There was talk of a potential palimony
case, but despite public speculation that the two women were lovers, MacKown maintained that she had never had a sexual relationship with Nevelson, as did Mike Nevelson.
Louise Nevelson has been a fundamental key in the feminist art movement. Credited with triggering the examination of femininity
in art, Nevelson challenged the vision of what type of art women would be creating with her dark, masculine
and totem-like
artworks. Nevelson believed that art reflected the individual, not "masculine-feminine labels", and chose to take on her role as an artist, not specifically a female artist. Reviews of Nevelson's works in the 1940s wrote her off as just a woman artist. A reviewer of her 1941 exhibition at Nierendorf Gallery stated: "We learned the artist is a woman, in time to check our enthusiasm. Had it been otherwise, we might have hailed these sculptural expressions as by surely a great figure among moderns." Another review was similar in its sexism
: "Nevelson is a sculptor; she comes from Portland, Maine. You'll deny both these facts and you might even insist Nevelson is a man, when you see her Portraits in Paint, showing this month at the Nierendorf Gallery."
Even with her influence upon future generations of feminist artists, Nevelson's opinion of discrimination within the art world bordered on the belief that artists who were not gaining success based on gender suffered from a lack of confidence. When asked by Feminist Art Journal if she suffered from sexism
within the art world, Nevelson replied "I am a woman's liberation." Nevelson has a place setting in Judy Chicago's
1974–1979 masterpiece
The Dinner Party
.
Tsardom of Russia
The Tsardom of Russia was the name of the centralized Russian state from Ivan IV's assumption of the title of Tsar in 1547 till Peter the Great's foundation of the Russian Empire in 1721.From 1550 to 1700, Russia grew 35,000 km2 a year...
, she emigrated with her family to the United States in the early 20th century when she was three years old. Nevelson learned English at school, as she spoke Yiddish
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
at home. By the early 1930s she was attending art classes at the Art Students League of New York
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
, and in 1941 she had her first solo exhibition. A student of Hans Hoffman and Chaim Gross
Chaim Gross
Chaim Gross was an Austrian born American sculptor. He was born in the then Austro-Hungarian village of Kolomyia and immigrated to the United States in 1921...
, Nevelson experimented with early conceptual art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
using found object
Found object
A found object, in an artistic sense, indicates the use of an object which has not been designed for an artistic purpose, but which exists for another purpose already. Found objects may exist either as utilitarian, manufactured items, or things which occur in nature...
s, and dabbled in painting and printing before dedicating her lifework to sculpture. Usually created out of wood, her sculptures appear puzzle-like, with multiple intricately cut pieces placed into wall sculptures or independently standing pieces, often 3-D. A figure in the international art scene, Nevelson was showcased at the 31st Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
. Her work is seen in major collections in museums and corporations. Louise Nevelson remains one of the most important figures in 20th-century American sculpture.
Early personal life
Louise Nevelson was born Leah Berliawsky in 1899 in PerislavPereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi
Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi is a town located where Alta River flows into Trubizh River in the Kiev Oblast in central Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi Raion , the town itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast...
, Kiev Oblast
Kiev Oblast
Kyiv Oblast, sometimes written as Kiev Oblast is an oblast in central Ukraine.The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Kyiv , also being the capital of Ukraine...
, Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
, to Minna Sadie and Isaac Berliawsky, a contractor and lumber
Lumber
Lumber or timber is wood in any of its stages from felling through readiness for use as structural material for construction, or wood pulp for paper production....
merchant. Even though the family lived comfortably, Nevelson's relatives had begun to leave the Russian Empire for America in the 1880s. The Berliawskys had to stay behind as Isaac, the youngest brother, had to care for his parents. While still in Europe, Minna gave birth to two of Nevelson's siblings: Nathan (born 1898) and Anita (1902). On his mother's death, Isaac moved to the United States in 1902. After he left, Minna and the children moved to the Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
area. According to family lore, young Nevelson was so forlorn about her father's departure that she became mute for six months.
In 1905 Minna and the children emigrated to the United States, where they joined Isaac in Rockland, Maine
Rockland, Maine
Rockland is a city in Knox County, Maine, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 7,297. It is the county seat of Knox County. The city is a popular tourist destination...
. Isaac initially struggled to establish himself there, suffering from depression while the family settled into their new home. He worked as a woodcutter
Lumberjack
A lumberjack is a worker in the logging industry who performs the initial harvesting and transport of trees for ultimate processing into forest products. The term usually refers to a bygone era when hand tools were used in harvesting trees principally from virgin forest...
before opening a junkyard. Eventually he became a successful lumberyard owner and realtor. The family had another child, Lillian, in 1906. Nevelson was very close to her mother, who suffered from depression, a condition believed to be brought on by the family's migration from Russia and their minority status as a Jewish family living in Maine. Minna overly compensated for this, dressing herself and the children up in clothing "regarded as sophisticated in the Old Country". Her mother wore flamboyant outfits with heavy make-up; Nevelson described her mother's "dressing up" as "art, her pride, and her job", also describing her as someone who should have lived "in a palace".
Nevelson's first experience of art was at the age of nine at the Rockland Public Library
Rockland Public Library
The Rockland Public Library, in Rockland, Maine, was built during 1903-1904. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 for its architecture, by George Albert Clough in partnership with Wardner....
, where she saw a plaster cast
Plaster cast
A plaster cast is a copy made in plaster of another 3-dimensional form. The original from which the cast is taken may be a sculpture, building, a face, a fossil or other remains such as fresh or fossilised footprints – particularly in palaeontology .Sometimes a...
of Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc
Saint Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" , is a national heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the...
. Shortly thereafter she decided to study art, taking drawing in high school, where she also served as basketball captain. She painted watercolor interiors
Interior design
Interior design describes a group of various yet related projects that involve turning an interior space into an effective setting for the range of human activities are to take place there. An interior designer is someone who conducts such projects...
, in which furniture appeared molecular in structure, rather like her later professional work. Female figures made frequent appearances. In school, she practiced her English, her second language, as Yiddish was spoken at home. Unhappy with her family's economic status, language differences, the religious discrimination of the community, and her school, Nevelson set her sights on moving to high school in New York.
She graduated from high school in 1918, and began working as a stenographer at a local law office. There she met Bernard Nevelson, co-owner with his brother Charles of the Nevelson Brothers Company, a shipping business. Bernard introduced her to his brother, and Charles and Louise Nevelson were married in June 1920 in a Jewish wedding
Jewish wedding
A Jewish wedding is a wedding ceremony that follows Jewish law and traditions.While wedding ceremonies vary, common features of a Jewish wedding include a ketuba signed by two witnesses, a wedding canopy , a ring owned by the groom that is given to the bride under the canopy, and the breaking of a...
at the Copley Plaza Hotel
Copley Plaza Hotel
The Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel is a Forbes three-star, AAA four-diamond hotel in downtown Boston, Massachusetts owned by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. It stands on Copley Square, by the John Hancock Tower.-Construction and opening:...
in Boston. Having satisfied her parent's hope that she would marry into a wealthy family, she and her new husband moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where she began to study painting, drawing, singing, acting and dancing. She also became pregnant, and in 1922 she gave birth to her son Myron (later called Mike), who grew up to be a sculptor. Nevelson studied art, despite the disapproval of her parents-in-law. She commented: "My husband's family was terribly refined. Within that circle you could know Beethoven, but God forbid if you were Beethoven."
In 1924 the family moved to Mount Vernon, New York
Mount Vernon, New York
Mount Vernon is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. It lies on the border of the New York City borough of The Bronx.-Overview:...
, a popular Jewish area of Westchester County
Westchester County, New York
Westchester County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. Westchester covers an area of and has a population of 949,113 according to the 2010 Census, residing in 45 municipalities...
. Nevelson was upset with the move, which removed her from city life and her artistic environment. During the winter of 1932–1933 she separated from Charles, unwilling to becoming the socialite wife he expected her to be. She never sought financial support from Charles, and in 1941 the couple divorced.
1930s
Starting in 1929, Nevelson studied art full-time under Kenneth Hayes MillerKenneth Hayes Miller
Kenneth Hayes Miller was an American painter and teacher.Born in Oneida, New York, he studied at the Art Students League of New York with Kenyon Cox, Henry Siddons Mowbray and with William Merritt Chase at the New York School of Art. He died in New York City.-Students:Miller taught at the Art...
and Kimon Nicolaides
Kimon Nicolaides
Kimon Nicolaїdes was an American art teacher, author and artist. During World War I, he served in the U.S. Army in France as a camouflage artist.-Early life:...
at the Art Students League. Nevelson credited an exhibition of Noh
Noh
, or - derived from the Sino-Japanese word for "skill" or "talent" - is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Many characters are masked, with men playing male and female roles. Traditionally, a Noh "performance day" lasts all day and...
kimono
Kimono
The is a Japanese traditional garment worn by men, women and children. The word "kimono", which literally means a "thing to wear" , has come to denote these full-length robes...
s at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
as a catalyst for her to study art further. In 1931 she sent her son Mike to live with family and went to Europe, paying for the trip by selling a diamond bracelet that her now ex-husband had given her on the occasion of Mike's birth. In Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
she studied with Hans Hofmann
Hans Hofmann
Hans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter.-Biography:Hofmann was born in Weißenburg, Bavaria on March 21, 1880, the son of Theodor and Franziska Hofmann. When he was six he moved with his family to Munich...
before visiting Italy and France. Returning to New York in 1932 she once again studied under Hofmann, who was serving as a guest instructor at the Art Students League. She met Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
in 1933 and worked as his assistant on his mural Man at the Crossroads
Man at the Crossroads
Man at the Crossroads was a mural by Diego Rivera.The Rockefellers wanted to have a mural put on the ground-floor wall of Rockefeller Center. Nelson Rockefeller wanted Henri Matisse or Pablo Picasso to do it because he favored their modern style, but neither was available...
at Rockefeller Plaza. The two had an affair which caused a rift between Nevelson and Rivera's wife, Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo de Rivera was a Mexican painter, born in Coyoacán, and perhaps best known for her self-portraits....
, an artist Nevelson greatly admired. Shortly thereafter, Nevelson started taking Chaim Gross
Chaim Gross
Chaim Gross was an Austrian born American sculptor. He was born in the then Austro-Hungarian village of Kolomyia and immigrated to the United States in 1921...
's sculpture classes at the Educational Alliance. She continued to experiment with other artistic mediums, including lithography
Lithography
Lithography is a method for printing using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface...
and etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
, but decided to focus on sculpture. Her early works were created from plaster
Plaster
Plaster is a building material used for coating walls and ceilings. Plaster starts as a dry powder similar to mortar or cement and like those materials it is mixed with water to form a paste which liberates heat and then hardens. Unlike mortar and cement, plaster remains quite soft after setting,...
, clay
Clay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
and tattistone. During the 1930s Nevelson began exhibiting her work in group shows. In 1935, she taught mural painting at the Madison Square Boys and Girls Club in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
as part of the Works Progress Administration
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...
(WPA). She worked for the WPA in the easel
Easel
An easel is an upright support used for displaying and/or fixing something resting upon it.-Etymology:The word is an old Germanic synonym for donkey...
painting and sculpture divisions until 1939. For several years, the impoverished Nevelson and her son walked through the streets gathering wood to burn in their fireplace
Fireplace
A fireplace is an architectural structure to contain a fire for heating and, especially historically, for cooking. A fire is contained in a firebox or firepit; a chimney or other flue allows gas and particulate exhaust to escape...
to keep warm; the firewood she found served as the starting point for the art that made her famous. Her work during the 1930s explored sculpture, painting and drawing. Early ink and pencil drawings of nudes show the same fluidity seen in the works of Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
. Nevelson also created terra-cotta semi-abstract animals and oil painting
Oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...
s.
First exhibitions and the 1940s
In 1941, Nevelson had her first solo exhibition at Nierendorf Gallery. Gallery owner Karl Nierendorf represented her until his death in 1947. During her time at Nierendorf, Nevelson came across a shoeshine boxShoeshiner
Shoeshiner or boot polisher is a profession in which a person polishes shoes with shoe polish. They are often known as shoeshine boys because the job is traditionally that of a male child. In the leather fetish communities, they are often called bootblacks...
owned by local shoeshiner
Shoeshiner
Shoeshiner or boot polisher is a profession in which a person polishes shoes with shoe polish. They are often known as shoeshine boys because the job is traditionally that of a male child. In the leather fetish communities, they are often called bootblacks...
Joe Milone. She displayed the box at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, bringing her the first major attention she received from the press. An article about her appeared in Art Digest in November 1943. In the 1940s, she began producing Cubist figure studies
Figure drawing
In art, a figure drawing is a study of the human form in its various shapes and body postures - sitting, standing or even sleeping. It is a study or stylized depiction of the human form, with the line and form of the human figure as the primary objective, rather than the subject person. It is a...
in materials such as stone, bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
, terra cotta
Terra cotta
Terracotta, Terra cotta or Terra-cotta is a clay-based unglazed ceramic, although the term can also be applied to glazed ceramics where the fired body is porous and red in color...
, and wood. In 1943, she had a show at Norlyst Gallery called "The Clown as the Center of his World" in which she constructed sculptures about the circus from found object
Found object
A found object, in an artistic sense, indicates the use of an object which has not been designed for an artistic purpose, but which exists for another purpose already. Found objects may exist either as utilitarian, manufactured items, or things which occur in nature...
s. The show was not well received, and Nevelson stopped using found objects until the mid-1950s. Despite poor reception, Nevelson's works at this time explored both figurative abstracts inspired by Cubism and the exploitative and experimental influence of Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
. The decade provided Nevelson with the materials, movements, and self-created experiments that would mold her signature modernist style in the 1950s.
Mid-career
During the 1950s, Nevelson exhibited her work as often as possible. Yet despite awards and growing popularity with art critics, she continued to struggle financially. To make ends meet she began teaching sculpture classes in adult educationAdult education
Adult education is the practice of teaching and educating adults. Adult education takes place in the workplace, through 'extension' school or 'school of continuing education' . Other learning places include folk high schools, community colleges, and lifelong learning centers...
programs in the Great Neck
Great Neck, New York
The term Great Neck is commonly applied to a peninsula on the North Shore of Long Island, which includes the village of Great Neck, the village of Great Neck Estates, the village of Great Neck Plaza, and others, as well as an area south of the peninsula near Lake Success and the border of Queens...
public school system. Her own work began to grow to monumental size, moving beyond the human scale
Human scale
Human scale is the set of physical quantities, and quantities of information, characterizing the human body, its motor, sensory, or mental capabilities, and human social institutions.- Science vs...
sized works she had been creating during the early 1940s. Nevelson also visited Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
, and discovered influences for her work in Mayan
Maya architecture
A unique and spectacular style, Maya architecture spans several thousands of years. Often the most dramatic and easily recognizable as Maya are the stepped pyramids from the Terminal Pre-classic period and beyond. Being based on the general Mesoamerican architectural traditions these pyramids...
ruins and the stele
Stele
A stele , also stela , is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected for funerals or commemorative purposes, most usually decorated with the names and titles of the deceased or living — inscribed, carved in relief , or painted onto the slab...
s of Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
. In 1955 Nevelson joined Colette Roberts' Grand Central Modern Gallery, where she had numerous one-woman shows. There she exhibited some of her most notable mid-century works: Bride of the Black Moon, First Personage, and the exhibit "Moon Garden + One", which showed her first wall piece, Sky Cathedral, in 1958. The 1958 series of exhibitions were described by critic Hilton Kramer
Hilton Kramer
Hilton Kramer is a U.S. art critic and cultural commentator.Kramer was educated at Syracuse University, Columbia University, Harvard University, Indiana University and the New School for Social Research. He worked as the editor of Arts Magazine, art critic for The Nation, and from 1965 to 1982,...
as "remarkable and unforgettable." That year the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
purchased one of Nevelson's Sky Cathedral works, and in 1959 Nevelson was included in MoMA's Sixteen Americans exhibition. During this period, she painted her wood black and put on entirely black shows. In the early 1960s, she began creating white and gold pieces, and enclosing her small sculptures in wooden boxes. The change in scale of her sculptures, the influence of Latin American ancient art, and her gallery activity during this time is credited with bringing "Nevelson's sculpture in league with the grand scale of Abstract Expressionist painting, as well as the earlier mural painting of Rivera."
From 1957 to 1958, she was president of the New York Chapter of Artists' Equity and in 1958 she joined the Martha Jackson Gallery, where she was guaranteed income and became financially secure. That year, she was photographed and featured on the cover of Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
. In 1960 she had her first one-woman show in Europe at Galerie Daniel Cordier in Paris. Later that year a collection of her work, grouped together as "Dawn's Wedding Feast", was included in the group show, "Sixteen Americans," at the Museum of Modern Art alongside Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...
and Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns, Jr. is an American contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking.-Life:Born in Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns spent his early life in Allendale, South Carolina with his paternal grandparents after his parents' marriage failed...
. In 1962 she made her first museum sale to the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, who purchased the black wall, Young Shadows. That same year, her work was selected for the 31st Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
and she became national president of Artists' Equity, serving until 1964.
In 1962 she left Martha Jackson Gallery, had a brief stint at the Sidney Janis Gallery, and then joined Pace Gallery
Pace Gallery
The Pace Gallery is a New York City-based exhibition space. It was founded in 1960 in Boston by Arne Glimcher.-PaceWildenstein:From 1993 until April 1, 2010, the gallery became "PaceWildenstein," a joint business venture between the Pace Gallery and Wildenstein & Co....
in the fall of 1963. Nevelson had shows at Pace about every two years until the end of her career. In 1967 the Whitney Museum hosted the first retrospective of Nevelson's work, showing over one hundred pieces, including drawings from the 1930s and contemporary sculptures. In 1964 she created two works: Homage to 6,000,000 I and Homage to 6,000,000 II as a tribute to victims of The Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
. Nevelson hired several assistants over the years: Teddy Haseltine, Tom Kendall, and Diana Mackown, who helped in the studio and handled daily affairs. By this time, Nevelson had solidified commercial and critical success.
Later career and life
Nevelson continued to utilize wood in her sculptures, but also experimented with other materials such as aluminium, plastic and metal. In the fall of 1969 she was commissioned by Princeton UniversityPrinceton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
to create her first outdoor sculpture. After completion of her first outdoor sculptures, Nevelson stated: "Remember, I was in my early seventies when I came into monumental outdoor sculpture ... I had been through the enclosures of wood. I had been through the shadows. I had been through the enclosures and come out into the open." Nevelson also praised new materials like plexiglas and cor-ten steel, which she described as a "blessing". She embraced the idea of her works being able to withstand climate change and the freedom in moving beyond limitations in size. These public artworks were created by the Lippincott Foundry. Nevelson's public art commissions were a monetary success, but art historian Brooke Kamin Rapaport states that these pieces were not Nevelson's strongest works, and that Nevelson's "intuitive gesture" is not evident in the large steel works.
In 1973 the Walker Art Center
Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is considered one of the nation's "big five" museums for modern art along with the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Hirshhorn...
curated a major exhibition of her work, which traveled for two years. In 1975 she designed the chapel of St. Peter's Lutheran Church in midtown Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. When asked about her role as a Jewish artist creating Christian-themed art, Nevelson stated that her abstract work transcended religious barriers. During the last half of her life, Nevelson solidified her fame and her persona, cultivating a personal style for her "petite yet flamboyant" self that contributed to her legacy: dramatic dress
Dress
A dress is a garment consisting of a skirt with an attached bodice or with a matching bodice giving the effect of a one-piece garment.Dress may also refer to:*Clothing in general*Costume, fancy dress...
es, scarves and large false eyelashes. When Alice Neel
Alice Neel
Alice Neel was an American artist known for her oil on canvas portraits of friends, family, lovers, poets, artists and strangers...
asked Nevelson how she dressed so beautifully, Nevelson replied "Fucking, dear, fucking", in reference to her sexually liberated lifestyle. The designer Arnold Scaasi created many of her clothes. Nevelson died on April 17, 1988.
Style and works
When Nevelson was developing her style, many of her artistic colleagues – Alexander CalderAlexander Calder
Alexander Calder was an American sculptor and artist most famous for inventing mobile sculptures. In addition to mobile and stable sculpture, Alexander Calder also created paintings, lithographs, toys, tapestry, jewelry and household objects.-Childhood:Alexander "Sandy" Calder was born in Lawnton,...
, David Smith
David Smith (sculptor)
David Roland Smith was an American Abstract Expressionist sculptor and painter, best known for creating large steel abstract geometric sculptures.-Biography:...
, Theodore Roszak
Theodore Roszak (artist)
Theodore Roszak was an American sculptor and painter. He was born in Posen, Prussia , now Poznań, Poland, as a son of Polish parents, and emigrated to the United States at the age of two...
– were welding
Welding
Welding is a fabrication or sculptural process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by causing coalescence. This is often done by melting the workpieces and adding a filler material to form a pool of molten material that cools to become a strong joint, with pressure sometimes...
metal to create their large-scale sculptures. Nevelson decided to go in the opposite direction, exploring the streets for inspiration and finding it in wood. Nevelson's most notable sculptures are her walls; wooden, wall-like collage
Collage
A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
driven reliefs consisting of multiple boxes and compartments that hold abstract shapes and found objects from chair legs to balusters. Nevelson described these immersive sculptures as "environments". The wooden pieces were also cast-off scraps, pieces found in the streets of New York. While Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
caused uproar with his Fountain
Fountain (Duchamp)
Fountain is a 1917 work by Marcel Duchamp. It is one of the pieces which he called readymades. In such pieces he made use of an already existing object. In this case Duchamp used a urinal, which he titled Fountain and signed "R. Mutt". Readymades also go by the term Found object...
, which was not accepted as "art" at the time of its release due to Duchamp's attempt to mask the urinal
Urinal
A urinal is a specialized toilet for urinating into. It has the form of a container or simply a wall, with drainage and automatic or manual flushing....
s true form, Nevelson took found objects and by spray painting them she disguised them of their actual use or meaning. Nevelson called herself "the original recycler
Recycling
Recycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...
" owing to her extensive use of discarded objects, and credited Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
for "giving us the cube" that served as the groundwork for her cubist-style sculpture. She found strong influence in Picasso and Hofmann's cubist ideals, describing the Cubist movement as "one of the greatest awarenesses that the human mind has ever come to." She also found influence in Native American
Native American art
Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas encompasses the visual artistic traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Americas from ancient times to the present...
and Mayan art, dreams, the cosmos
Cosmos
In the general sense, a cosmos is an orderly or harmonious system. It originates from the Greek term κόσμος , meaning "order" or "ornament" and is antithetical to the concept of chaos. Today, the word is generally used as a synonym of the word Universe . The word cosmos originates from the same root...
and archetype
Archetype
An archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated...
s.
As a student of Hans Hofmann she was taught to practice her art with a limited palette, using colors such as black and white, to "discipline" herself. These colors would become part of Nevelson's repertoire. She spray painted her walls black until 1959. Nevelson described black as the "total color" that "means totality. It means: contains all ... it contained all color. It wasn't a negation of color. It was an acceptance. Because black encompasses all colors. Black is the most aristocratic color of all. The only aristocratic color ... I have seen things that were transformed into black, that took on greatness. I don't want to use a lesser word." In the 1960s she began incorporating white and gold into her works. Nevelson said that white was the color that "summoned the early morning and emotional promise." She described her gold phase as the "baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
phase", inspired by the idea being told as a child that America's streets would be "paved with gold," the materialism and hedonism of the color, the sun, and the moon. Nevelson revisited the Noh
Noh
, or - derived from the Sino-Japanese word for "skill" or "talent" - is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Many characters are masked, with men playing male and female roles. Traditionally, a Noh "performance day" lasts all day and...
robes and the gold coin
Gold coin
A gold coin is a coin made mostly or entirely of gold. Gold has been used for coins practically since the invention of coinage, originally because of gold's intrinsic value...
collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
for inspiration.
Nevelson explored three themes in her work: complicated past, factious present, and anticipated future. A common symbol that appears in Nevelson's work is the bride
Bride
A bride is a woman about to be married or newlywed.The word may come from the Proto-Germanic verb root *brū-, meaning 'to cook, brew, or make a broth' which was the role of the daughter-in-law in primitive families...
, as seen in Bride of the Black Moon (1955). The symbol of the bride referred to Nevelon's own escape from matrimony in her early life, and her own independence as a woman throughout the rest of her life. Her Sky Cathedral works often took years to create; Sky Cathedral: Night Wall, in the collection of the Columbus Museum of Art
Columbus Museum of Art
The Columbus Museum of Art is an art museum located in downtown Columbus, Ohio. Formed in 1878 as the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, it was the first art museum to register its charter with the state of Ohio.-Building:...
, took 13 years to build in her New York City studio. On the Sky Cathedral series, Nevelson commented: "This is the Universe, the stars, the moon – and you and I, everyone."
Legacy
A sculpture gardenSculpture garden
A sculpture garden is an outdoor garden dedicated to the presentation of sculpture, usually several permanently sited works in durable materials in landscaped surroundings....
, Louise Nevelson Plaza, is located in downtown New York City and features a collection of works by Nevelson. Nevelson donated her papers in several installments from 1966 to 1979. They are fully digitized and in the collection of the Archives of American Art
Archives of American Art
The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 16 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washington, D.C...
. The Farnsworth Art Museum, in Nevelson's childhood home of Rockland, Maine
Rockland, Maine
Rockland is a city in Knox County, Maine, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 7,297. It is the county seat of Knox County. The city is a popular tourist destination...
, houses the second largest collection of her works, including jewelry she designed. In 2000, the United States Postal Service
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
released a series of commemorative postage stamps in Nevelson's honor. The following year, friend and playwright Edward Albee
Edward Albee
Edward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright who is best known for The Zoo Story , The Sandbox , Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , and a rewrite of the screenplay for the unsuccessful musical version of Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's . His works are considered well-crafted, often...
wrote the play Occupant as a homage to the sculptor. The show opened in New York in 2002 with Anne Bancroft
Anne Bancroft
Anne Bancroft was an American actress associated with the Method acting school, which she had studied under Lee Strasberg....
playing Nevelson, but it never moved beyond previews owing to Bancroft's illness. Nevelson's distinct and eccentric
Eccentricity (behavior)
In popular usage, eccentricity refers to unusual or odd behavior on the part of an individual. This behavior would typically be perceived as unusual or unnecessary, without being demonstrably maladaptive...
image has been documented by photographers such as Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe was an American photographer, known for his large-scale, highly stylized black and white portraits, photos of flowers and nude men...
, Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon was an American photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century."-Photography career:Avedon was born in New York City to a Jewish Russian...
, Hans Namuth
Hans Namuth
Hans Namuth was a German-born photographer. Namuth specialized in portraiture, photographing many artists, including abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock. His photos of Pollock at work in his studio increased Pollock's fame and recognition and led to a greater understanding of his work and...
and Pedro E. Guerrero
Pedro E. Guerrero
Pedro E. Guerrero is an American photographer.He worked extensively with Frank Lloyd Wright, Alexander Calder and Louise Nevelson.-Bibliography:...
.
Upon Nevelson's death her estate was worth at least $100 million. Her son, Mike Nevelson, removed 36 sculptures from her house. Documentation showed that Nevelson had bequeathed these works, worth millions, to her friend and assistant of 25 years Diana MacKown, yet Mike Nevelson claimed otherwise. Proceedings began about the estate and will
Will (law)
A will or testament is a legal declaration by which a person, the testator, names one or more persons to manage his/her estate and provides for the transfer of his/her property at death...
, which Mike Nevelson claimed did not mention MacKown. There was talk of a potential palimony
Palimony
Palimony is a popular term used to describe the division of financial assets and real property on the termination of a personal live-in relationship wherein the parties are not legally married. The term is a portmanteau of the words pal and alimony...
case, but despite public speculation that the two women were lovers, MacKown maintained that she had never had a sexual relationship with Nevelson, as did Mike Nevelson.
Feminism and Nevelson's influence on feminist art
I'm not a feminist. I'm an artist who happens to be a woman. – Louise Nevelson
Louise Nevelson has been a fundamental key in the feminist art movement. Credited with triggering the examination of femininity
Femininity
Femininity is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with girls and women. Though socially constructed, femininity is made up of both socially defined and biologically created factors...
in art, Nevelson challenged the vision of what type of art women would be creating with her dark, masculine
Masculine
Masculine or masculinity, normally refer to qualities positively associated with men.Masculine may also refer to:*Masculine , a grammatical gender*Masculine cadence, a final chord occurring on a strong beat in music...
and totem-like
Totem
A totem is a stipulated ancestor of a group of people, such as a family, clan, group, lineage, or tribe.Totems support larger groups than the individual person. In kinship and descent, if the apical ancestor of a clan is nonhuman, it is called a totem...
artworks. Nevelson believed that art reflected the individual, not "masculine-feminine labels", and chose to take on her role as an artist, not specifically a female artist. Reviews of Nevelson's works in the 1940s wrote her off as just a woman artist. A reviewer of her 1941 exhibition at Nierendorf Gallery stated: "We learned the artist is a woman, in time to check our enthusiasm. Had it been otherwise, we might have hailed these sculptural expressions as by surely a great figure among moderns." Another review was similar in its sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
: "Nevelson is a sculptor; she comes from Portland, Maine. You'll deny both these facts and you might even insist Nevelson is a man, when you see her Portraits in Paint, showing this month at the Nierendorf Gallery."
Even with her influence upon future generations of feminist artists, Nevelson's opinion of discrimination within the art world bordered on the belief that artists who were not gaining success based on gender suffered from a lack of confidence. When asked by Feminist Art Journal if she suffered from sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
within the art world, Nevelson replied "I am a woman's liberation." Nevelson has a place setting in Judy Chicago's
Judy Chicago
Judy Chicago is a feminist artist, author, and educator.Chicago has been creating artwork since the mid 1960s. Her earliest forays into the art world coincided with the rise of Minimalism, which she eventually abandoned in favor of art she believed to have greater content and relevance...
1974–1979 masterpiece
Masterpiece
Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....
The Dinner Party
The Dinner Party
The Dinner Party is an installation artwork by feminist artist Judy Chicago depicting place settings for 39 mythical and historical famous women. It was produced from 1974 to 1979 as a collaboration and was first exhibited in 1979. Subsequently, despite art world resistance, it toured to 16 venues...
.
See also
- List of Louise Nevelson public art works
- Neith NevelsonNeith NevelsonNeith Nevelson, , is an artist best known for paintings of horses, female nudes, and male faces.-Background:...
, her granddaughter, also an artist.
Further reading
- Busch, Julia M. A Decade of Sculpture: the New Media in the 1960s. Philadelphia: The Art Alliance Press (1974). ISBN 0-87982-007-1
- Celant, Germano. Louise Nevelson. New York: Skira (2011). ISBN 8857204456
- Friedman, Martin. Nevelson: Wood Sculptures, An Exhibition Organized by Walker Art Center. Boston: E.P. Dutton (1973). ISBN 052547367X
- Guerrero, Pedro. Louise Nevelson: Atmospheres and Environments. Clarkson N. Potter (1988). ISBN 0517540541
- Herskovic, Marika. American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s, An Illustrated Survey. New York: New York School Press (2004). ISBN 0-9677994-1-4
- Hobbs, Robert C. "Louise Nevelson: A Place That Is an Essence". Woman's Art Journal. 1. 1 (1980): 39–43.
- Lisle, Laurie. Louise Nevelson: A Passionate Life. Bloomington: IUniverse (2001). ISBN 0595190693
- MacKown, Diane. Dawns and Dusks: Taped Conversations With Diana MacKown. Encore Editions (1980). ISBN 0684158957
- Wilson, Laurie. Louise Nevelson: Iconography and Sources. New York: Garland Pub. (1981). ISBN 0-8240-3946-7
External links
- Nevelson on Wikiversity
- Louise Nevelson Foundation
- Louise Nevelson: The Artist and the Legend
- "The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson: Constructing a Legend" Exhibition (2007) at The Jewish Museum (New York)Jewish Museum (New York)The Jewish Museum of New York, an art museum and repository of cultural artifacts, is the leading Jewish museum in the United States. With over 26,000 objects, it contains the largest collection of art and Jewish culture outside of museums in Israel. The museum is housed at 1109 Fifth Avenue, in...
: online timeline, art and audio "Knowing Nevelson" panel discussion