Louise Nevelson
Louise and Neith Nevelson c.1965
Birth name	Leah Berliawsky
Born	September 23, 1899(1899-09-23) Kiev, Czarist Russia
Died	April 17, 1988 (aged 88) New York, New York
Nationality	American
Field	mainly Sculpture
Movement	see article

Louise Berliawsky Nevelson (born Leah Berliawsky, September 23, 1899, Kiev, Czarist Russia - d. April 17, 1988, New York, New York) was a Russian-born American artist.

[edit] Interpretation

Nevelson is known for her abstract expressionist “crates” grouped together to form a new creation. She used found objects or everyday discarded things in her “assemblages” or assemblies, one of which was three stories high: "When you put together things that other people have thrown out, you’re really bringing them to life – a spiritual life that surpasses the life for which they were originally created."

[edit] History of work

Nevelson studied at the Art Students League in New York City during 1929-30. She later studied with Hans Hofmann in Munich, and worked as an assistant to Diego Rivera. As a part of the Works Progress Administration, Nevelson taught art at the Educational Alliance art school on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City.^[1] At the Educational Alliance art school Nevelson studied sculpture with Chaim Gross. At the Art Students League Nevelson studied life drawing and painting with George Grosz. ^[2]

[edit] Means of expression

Some work done by Nevelson memorialized the Holocaust. Nevelson often worked in shallow-relief, often monochromatically. Nevelson's work is not easily allied with any one movement, though it has been variously linked to Cubism, Dada, Surrealism, Abstract expressionism, Minimalism, feminism, and installation art.^[3]

While executing sculptures in wood throughout her career, Nevelson also worked in lucite, aluminum, and magnesium. Nevelson also worked in cast paper. ^[4] During the early 1980s Nevelson employed Cor-ten steel as sculptural material.^[5]

[edit] Personal life

Louise grew up in Rockland, Maine and spent most of her adolescent years there. There is a street named for her there. She married Charles Nevelson a wealthy ship worker after she graduated from high school in 1918, and together they had a child named Myron Nevelson. Louise and Charles later separated in 1931.

[edit] Trivia

Mercedes Ruehl played Nevelson in Edward Albee's play "Occupant" at the Signature Theater in New York in summer 2008.

[edit] Gallery

Sky Cathedral, painted wood, 1982, Smithsonian American Art Museum

'Night Leaf', plexiglas sculpture by Louise Nevelson 1969, Smithsonian American Art Museum

[edit] Books

• Busch, Julia M., A Decade of Sculpture: the New Media in the 1960's (The Art Alliance Press: Philadelphia; Associated University Presses: London, 1974) ISBN 0-87982-007-1
• Wilson, Laurie; Louise Nevelson : iconography and sources (New York : Garland Pub., 1981) ISBN 0-8240-3946-7
• Marika Herskovic, American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey, (New York School Press, 20045.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4. p.246-249

[edit] External links

• Pace Wildenstein Gallery: Louise Nevelson
• Louise Nevelson Papers Online at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art

[edit] References