Louise Nevelson

Fine Artist

  • Born: September 23, 1899
  • Birthplace: Kiev, Russian Empire (now in Ukraine)
  • Died: April 17, 1988
  • Place of death: New York, New York

American sculptor

Nevelson’s original and unusual view of sculpture as environmental and transforming, as well as her innovative use of materials, made her a leading sculptor of the twentieth century and a major role model for twentieth century women artists.

Area of achievement Art

Early Life

Louise Nevelson was born Leah Berliawsky, the second child of four born to Isaac and Zeisel Berliawsky. Isaac Berliawsky emigrated to the United States in 1902, and his family joined him in 1905; they settled in the small coastal town of Rockland, Maine. Isaac had been involved in the family lumber business in Russia. After settling in the United States, he supported his own family by selling junk, building houses, and buying and selling properties.

As a working-class Jewish immigrant family, the Berliawskys were viewed as outsiders by the predominantly Protestant population of Rockland. From the beginning, Leah, now called Louise, felt a sense of isolation and alienation. Forced to change her name and to abandon her mother tongue in favor of English, she found her refuge in the arts. Both of her parents enjoyed the arts, especially music. Her mother was interested in fashion and made her own unusual and extravagant clothes. Louise also enjoyed wearing her own “creations,” and by the age of seven she was expressing a desire to become an artist. As a young girl, she took private voice lessons and piano lessons, drew, and painted in oil and watercolor.

After her graduation from high school in June of 1918, Louise became engaged to a wealthy shipowner from New York named Charles Nevelson, who was descended from Lithuanian Jews. In 1920, they married in Boston, settled in New York, and Louise began to live the lifestyle of an upper-class, socially elite lady. Her only child, Myron Irving Nevelson, was born in 1922.

At the same time Nevelson was functioning as a New York socialite, wife, and mother, she was unable to forget her interest in the arts. She continued to wear flamboyant fashions of her own creation, and by 1924 she was studying voice with Metropolitan Opera coach Estelle Liebling, attending Saturday afternoon drawing classes at the Art Students League, and taking private drawing lessons with the well-known artist William Meyerowitz. In 1926 she began studying acting at the International Theater Arts Institute in Brooklyn under the Italian actress, Princess Norina Matchabelli.

Throughout her life, Nevelson was to retain a deep interest in theater and music, as well as dance; but the visual arts were to become her lifetime passion. She began her first serious, full-time study of art in 1929 at the Art Students League in New York, where she studied painting and drawing with the distinguished artist and teacher Kenneth Hayes Miller.

Almost from its inception there was strife in Louise’s marriage to Charles. Charles was a conservative businessman who desired his wife to play a more traditional role in family and social life. After the family business suffered losses during the mid-1920’s, Charles moved the family to modest housing and expected Louise to help economize. She chose instead to develop her creative interests. Although she cared deeply for her son, she ultimately decided to dedicate her life exclusively to art. In 1931, she separated from her husband and left their son in his custody. She later divorced Charles in 1941.

Louise Nevelson went to Munich in 1931 to study with Hans Hofmann, who was one of the most influential avant-garde artists and teachers of the period. In Munich, she expanded her understanding of cubism, but because of general disappointment with Hofmann’s program, she left after about three months. She traveled to Berlin and Vienna, where she played small roles in several films. After spending a few weeks in Italy and Paris, she returned to New York.

In 1932, Nevelson became an assistant on a series of frescos executed by the famous Mexican artist Diego Rivera at the New Workers School in New York. She returned to the Art Students League to study drawing and painting with Hans Hofmann, who had moved to New York. She also began her long study of modern dance at this time, and took up the study of sculpture under the sculptor Chaim Gross.

Life’s Work

It was in 1934 that Nevelson began to make the transition from art student to professional artist. She rented an artist’s studio in New York and exhibited paintings in her first gallery showing at Alfred Stieglitz’s Secession Gallery. From 1935 to 1939, she taught art for the government-subsidized Works Progress Administration.

Although Nevelson continued to paint and draw throughout her life, by 1934, she was directing most of her artistic energy into sculpture, the art form for which she would become famous. Her early sculptures were primarily human, animal, or abstract forms made out of plaster or clay. She exhibited a sculpture for the first time at the Brooklyn Museum show entitled “Sculpture: A Group Exhibition by Young Sculptors” (1935).

In the 1930’s and 1940’s, two of the most influential avant-garde art styles were cubism and Surrealism. Nevelson was inspired by both. In the 1940’s, her work became increasingly more geometric, abstract, and complexly layered and was to reveal subtle metaphysical and Surrealist tendencies in her creation of sculpture that included movable parts, viewer participation, and later, the erection of total, theatrical environments. By the 1940’s, she was also constructing or assembling sculpture, in the manner that was becoming a major sculptural method of the twentieth century, rather than carving or modeling. Sculptural assemblage would become Nevelson’s primary means of artistic expression.

During the 1940’s, Nevelson experienced severe financial difficulties. Although she exhibited widely at the Karl Nierendorf Gallery and elsewhere, her work received mixed reviews and rarely sold. It was not until Nevelson was in her fifties that her mature sculptural style developed and she began creating the enormous abstract environmental sculptures for which she became well known.

By 1955, Nevelson’s work was being represented by the important but nonprofit Grand Central Moderns Gallery in New York. “The Royal Voyage” (1955), Nevelson’s second solo exhibition at the Grand Central Moderns Gallery, was the first in a series of Nevelson’s theme exhibitions that consisted of assembled wood painted entirely black. “The Royal Voyage” was an environmental installation created from dozens of large, rough wood pieces arranged to symbolize a king and queen (represented by huge beams) embarking on a mysterious, mystical sea journey.

After “The Royal Voyage” show, Nevelson presented other theme exhibitions in black wood at the Grand Central Moderns. “Moon Garden + One” (1958) was a huge black theatrical environment that featured her first wall, Sky Cathedral, a structure more than eleven feet high and ten feet long that was constructed out of boxes filled with a variety of wooden forms and objects arranged in a complex and abstract manner. The exhibition was lit dramatically in blue and emanated a mood of otherworldliness.

“Moon Garden + One” was highly applauded by critics and the national media. The show marked the beginning of Nevelson’s critical success and her recognition as a major twentieth century sculptor. By this time, Nevelson had collected huge warehouses and storerooms full of junk and odds and ends, mostly wood, that she assembled in large walls constructed of boxes or into immense environmental installations, most of which were painted uniformly in one color, usually black, white, or gold.

In 1960, Nevelson created her first totally white environment at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in a show entitled “Sixteen Americans.” Nevelson was given the biggest gallery for the installation of her “Dawn’s Wedding Feast,” which consisted of walls constructed of filled boxes, intricately constructed columns, hanging sun and moon assemblages, a nuptial pillow, a wedding chest, and a wedding cake made from Victorian finials and chair legs. The marriage theme was to be a recurrent one in Nevelson’s work and can be seen as symbolizing traditional marriage ceremonies, marriage to life, or marriage to one’s work.

By 1961, Nevelson was being represented by the prestigious Martha Jackson Gallery in New York and was receiving a guaranteed income. Fascinated by the allure of gold, she made a golden environment out of her walls of assemblage boxes called “The Royal Tides” (1961). Toilet seats, furniture parts, tools, and junk in abstract arrangements glowed in shimmering gold and were meant to evoke the mood of royalty, another of Nevelson’s recurrent themes.

By the early 1960’s, Nevelson had become an extremely famous and highly respected sculptor. In 1962, she was selected as one of the three artists to represent the United States at the important international exhibition, the XXXI Biennale, Internazionale d’Arte in Venice, Italy. She was awarded the grand prize in the First Sculpture International at the Torcuato di Tella Institute’s Center of Visual Arts, Buenos Aires, in the same year. In 1963, she was given a Ford Foundation grant to work on printmaking at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles, California. In 1964, Nevelson began her official affiliation with the important Pace Gallery in New York, which sold her work regularly and gave her a guaranteed income. The Whitney Museum of American Art gave Nevelson a retrospective exhibition in 1967, and she was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1968.

Nevelson began to make large metal sculptures for public spaces in the late 1960’s. She worked primarily with cor-ten steel, out of which she created immense abstract forms generally meant for permanent outdoor display. Princeton University commissioned the first of these, Atmosphere and Environment X (1969). In 1972, Night Presence IV (22« feet high) was installed on Park Avenue in New York and Atmosphere and Environment XIII: Windows to the West (15 feet high) was erected in Scottsdale, Arizona.

In the late 1960’s, Nevelson also began to work with plastics, plexiglas, and Lucite. She assembled these materials into abstract forms in the manner of the wood constructions, but these were smaller and more delicate in appearance. Sculptures such as Ice Palace I (1967) and Canada Series I (1968) featured overlapping transparencies and reflection of light.

The interior of the Chapel of the Good Shepherd in Saint Peter’s Church, New York, was entirely designed by Nevelson in 1977. Again taking on a large-scale project, Nevelson designed benches, vestments, and constructed wall sculptures in white, and created another of her total environments. In the same year, Mrs. N’s Palace, shown at the Pace Gallery, was an installation of massive wooden forms that symbolized Nevelson’s dream home or environment.

By the time of Nevelson’s death, she had become a major media celebrity and was recognized as a leader in twentieth century sculpture. Her vision of sculpture as environmental and transforming, and her incorporation of old, found objects and junk into works of art was highly innovative and daring. Nevelson received many honors and awards in the later part of her life. In 1978, Legion Memorial Square in Manhattan was renamed Louise Nevelson Plaza. In 1979 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was awarded its gold medal for sculpture in 1983. She was presented with a National Medal of the Arts by President Ronald Reagan in 1985.

Nevelson continued to work as an artist almost to the end of her life. In 1988, after undergoing radiation treatment, she died of a brain tumor at her home in New York. A memorial service was held for her in the Medieval Sculpture Hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Significance

Nevelson was a truly independent woman whose life was entirely dedicated to her art. While her mode of dress was feminine and extravagant, she proved, through her art, that there was no limit to what a woman could accomplish or create if she was seriously dedicated. The materials, methods, and size of Nevelson’s art were highly nontraditional for women. Early in her career, Nevelson was criticized for her choices, but she commanded her art so well that she eventually overwhelmed and impressed most of her critics. Ultimately, she came to be acknowledged internationally for her originality and contribution to the history of sculpture, primarily because of her constructed environments and innovative use of materials.

Throughout her life, Nevelson identified herself as a feminist. She refused to be controlled by any strictures put on her merely because she was a woman. During the 1940’s, she came to associate more and more with other women artists in an effort to gain strength against the sexist attitudes that were predominant in the art world of the time. She participated in exhibitions featuring women artists and was elected to the National Association of Women Artists in 1952. In 1979, Nevelson was chosen to be the New York Feminist Art Institute’s guest of honor at the benefit given at the World Trade Center.

By the end of the 1970’s, Nevelson, because of her highly public presence, had become a major role model for women, and for women artists in particular. She was an example of a powerful woman who was able to claim her life for her own, mold it, control it, and devote it to the thing she cared about most deeply. She was flamboyant, outspoken, energetic, and resilient, and her art was daring, innovative, and supremely her own. She stopped at almost nothing to express her innermost self through her art and she always believed that what she had to express was important and valid. Since the time of Nevelson, women artists have begun working widely in large-scale forums and nontraditional materials such as metals, plastics, and wood. Nevelson provided women artists with a truly inspiring example of female strength, creativity, and courage.

Bibliography

Glimcher, Arnold B. Louise Nevelson. New York: Praeger, 1972. Written by the director of the Pace Gallery, New York, who was Nevelson’s friend and dealer. This book serves as an excellent introduction to her life and work up to 1972. Includes a list of major exhibitions and collections, as well as more than one hundred black-and-white and color photographs of her work. No bibliography.

Lipman, Jean. Nevelson’s World. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1983. With an introduction by art critic Hilton Kramer and an afterword by Louise Nevelson. This book focuses on the art of Nevelson with thorough discussions of her early work, wood sculpture, transparent and metal sculpture, as well as works on paper. Includes a bibliography and more than one hundred color and black-and-white reproductions.

Lisle, Laurie. Louise Nevelson: A Passionate Life. New York: Summit Books, 1990. An important, thorough examination of Nevelson’s life, career, and work. This is an interesting, well-researched biography that analyzes Nevelson’s development, from birth to death. Includes an excellent bibliography and black-and-white photographs.

Nevelson, Louise. Dawns and Dusks. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976. Based on taped conversations between Nevelson and her assistant, Diana MacKown, with whom Nevelson discusses her life and art. The focus of the book is on her career and her sculpture. Includes black-and-white photographs of Nevelson, family, and friends, as well as reproductions of art. Introduction by art historian John Canaday.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Louise Nevelson: Atmospheres and Environments. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1980. A beautiful catalog published in conjunction with a 1980 exhibition of Nevelson’s sculpture at the Whitney. Includes an introduction by Edward Albee and excellent color photographs of some of Nevelson’s most important environmental exhibits, including “Moon Garden + One,” “Dawn’s Wedding Feast,” and “The Royal Tides.” With bibliography.

Rapaport, Brooke Kamin, ed. The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson: Constructing a Legend. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2007. A study of Nevelson’s sculptures, with color reproductions that accompanied a major exhibit of her work. In several essays, critics analyze all phases of her career, examining her use of color, large-scale commissions, and self-creation as a major artist. Includes an illustrated chronology.

Wilson, Laurie. Louise Nevelson, Iconography and Sources. New York: Garland, 1981. Based on a Ph.D. dissertation finished in 1978, this book is an important contribution to the study of the meanings and background behind Nevelson’s imagery. Wilson seeks the sources of Nevelson’s symbolism, particularly of marriage, royalty, and death, in her life, studies, travel, and philosophy. Includes a bibliography and 191 black-and-white illustrations.

1941-1970: October 20, 1942: Peggy Guggenheim’s Gallery Promotes New American Art.

1971-2000: June 14, 1989: Mapplethorpe’s Photographs Provoke Controversy.