Louise Nevelson
American
(Kiev, Russia, 1899 - 1988, New York, New York)
Louise Nevelson, a Russian-born American artist, is heralded as one of the great sculptors of the twentieth century. Her artistic education, which included classes in painting, drawing, voice and dramatics, began in 1920. Her serious studies in the field, however, began in 1929 at the Art Students League where she studied painting and drawing under the tuteledge of Kenneth Hayes Miller and Kimon Nicolaides. While at the League, Nevelson heard reports of the celebrated German painter/teacher Hans Hofmann, who was to become a significant figure in the development of Abstract Expressionism in America. In 1931, Nevelson arrived in Munich were she studied painting with Hofmann for a short time. While there her popularity among her peers in the art community and her dramatics background provided her with opportunities to participate as an extra in films being produced in Vienna and Berlin. Dissatisfied with this direction, she journeyed to Paris and studied the masters at the Louvre and primitive art at the Musee de l'Homme. After returning home for a short stint, and reenrolling at the Art Students League where she studied sculpting in addition to painting and drawing, she returned to Paris in 1932 to study art history, as well as painting and drawing. Upon her return to New York in the same year, she accepted an offer to assist the influential Mexican painter/muralist Diego Rivera with his Federal Art Project commissions for Rockefeller Center, the Rand School and the New Workers School on Fourteenth Street. Her tasks included mixing paint, applying washes, copying small sketches into the murals and researching historical fact for the social-protest murals. Future studies led Nevelson into the fields of etching, which will be discussed in further detail later, and lithography, which she learned at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles during the 1960's.
As early as 1933, Nevelson began exhibiting in group shows at various New York galleries and was given her first one-woman exhibition of sculpture at Nierendorf Gallery in 1941. Her first museum exhibition, which solidified her importance in the art world, took place in 1959 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, From this point, her recognition and popularity as an accomplished artist took hold and continued to escalate. By 1963 her reputation afforded her an invitation to participate at the World's Fair in Venice. Although the Swiss sculptor/painter Giacometti was awarded the prize, Nevelson was content with the honor of being selected to participate. Throughout her career, she received important recognition, including two honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees from Western College for Women in 1966 and Rutgers University in 1972. She was given her first major retrospective show at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in 1967 and one-woman exhibitions in prominent museums worldwide including the Rijksmuseum Kroller-Muller, Otterlo, Netherlands and the Museo Civico di Torino, Turin, Italy, both in 1969. Today her works can be viewed in numerous public and private collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Tate Gallery, London.
Louise Nevelson, an artist who identified with the Abstract Expressionists to the extent she went against traditional artistic values and practiced "spontaneous freedom of expression", never claimed to be influenced by any one person or occurrence in particular.(1) Rather she adhered to the belief she was molded by the culmination of all her experiences visual and otherwise.(2) During her formative years as an artist, beginning with her studies at the Art Students League in 1929 and continuing through the 1930's, several important influences can be discerned and their effects recognized in the works she executed throughout her lifetime. Cubism was perhaps the single most influential element on the artist's style. Later in life she recalled, after seeing reproductions of Picasso's Cubist works in the 1920's, "the purity and clarity of Cubism fit perfectly."(3) While at the Art Students League, she heard of Hans Hofmann in Munich who had acquired a Cubist background from time spent in Paris between 1904 and 1914. It was under Hofmann she was first exposed to Cubism's philosophy and techniques, which led to her development of an affinity for the style. During her second trip to Paris, she was further drawn to Cubism after once again coming into contact with the works of Picasso. Arnold Glimcher explains, "She began to recognize the cube in the late 1920's and began to understand it with Hofmann in 1931."(4) Nevelson is further quoted as saying, "I recognized it, I identified it, and it gave me the key to my stability."(5) Once this connection was made in the artist, the cube's effect on her became evident throughout her career. Another long-range influence that was aquired during Nevelson's early years was gleaned from her exposure to the cinema and the time spent with Diego Rivera. The cinema's large screen and Rivera's murals painted on vast walls gave Nevelson her appreciation of large scale. Yet another influence emerged in 1936 after the artist attended the exhibition Fantastic Art - Dada and Surrealism and Cubist and Abstract Art at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She had been aware of Surrealism for years, one source being Diego Rivera's wife, Frieda Kahlo, a Surrealist painter whom she befriended while assisting Rivera. Surrealism suggested to her landscapes constructed of her own individual pieces of sculpture. The appeal of Surrealism, Glimcher explains, "was the automatism of Surrealism's technical procedure, as it differed from the chance concept of Dada or the detached rationalism of abstract geometric art, that most influenced Nevelson."(6) Nevelson preferred the intuitive manner of process that defines automatism. Also influencing Nevelson was her exposure to primitive art during her second sojourn to Paris, her exposure to Mexican art under Rivera and American Indian art of which she stated, "I love the geometry of their form and the shallowness of their space." (7)
Through the combination of these influences, Louise Nevelson gradually created her own distinctive style, which is expressed most fluently in what have been termed 'sculptured walls'.(8) Nevelson is perhaps best known for these wall-like collage reliefs made of wood painted black, gold or white, plexiglass, metal or any combination of the three and constructed of boxes and compartments where abstract shapes and found objects such as chair legs and pieces of balustrades are assembled. The natural progression that led her to these walls began at the Art Students League in 1932 where she first began to sculpt in clay. After leaving the League in 1933, she continued to sculpt and exhibit pieces made of wood, terra-cotta, and cast stone. Nevelson exhibited sculpture at her first one-woman show in 1941. Glimcher notes that by creating an environment out of her individual pieces, this show can be cited as the first occasion that her assemblage technique, which is the most notable aspect of her walls, becomes evident. Around this same time she began collecting found objects, and after this show, began experimenting with mixed media including wood, metal and fabric. Nevelson continued to create environments, often incorporating a central theme, and began increasing her scale. Through the early 1950's she continued to assemble wooden sculpture, her preferred medium, and expand her scale. From 1950 through 1957, working mostly in wood now, her sculptural environments, referred to as landscapes, progressed from works constructed of recognizable elements, being the found objects she collected such as duck decoys and discarded bits of furniture, to pieces consisting of spikes and cubes and naturally found, unaltered objects. She now painted all of her sculpture black. From 1956 through 1957, Nevelson concentrated on producing shallow relief sculptures that combined natural forms with machine-cut, geometric shapes, and it was in the following year that Nevelson created her first wall quite by accident. For Christmas, 1957, she was given a case of liquor whose segmented box, she noticed, was itself a piece of sculpture and began positioning the existing relief and assemblage sculptures inside whatever crates or boxes she could accumulate, such as milk boxes and lettuce crates. As these boxes began overcrowding her studio, she began stacking them against the wall one on top of the other. From this necessary endeavor, her first wall was created, and in 1958 she exhibited her first installation of boxes and columnar units. International acclaim came quickly to Nevelson due to the novel design and construction of her 'sculptured walls'.
(1)Ian Chilvers, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford:Oxford University Press,1990),p.2. (2)Arnold B. Glimcher, Louise Nevelson (New York: Praeger Publishers,1972),p.54. (3)Glimcher,p.32. (4)Edward Albee, Louise Nevelson, Atmospheres and Environments (New York: Clarkston N. Potter,Inc. Publishers,1980),p.23. (5)Albee,p.23. (6)Glimcher,p.53. (7)Glimcher,p.41. (8)Chilvers,p.328.
Laura Pace 6/27/96
American
(Kiev, Russia, 1899 - 1988, New York, New York)
Louise Nevelson, a Russian-born American artist, is heralded as one of the great sculptors of the twentieth century. Her artistic education, which included classes in painting, drawing, voice and dramatics, began in 1920. Her serious studies in the field, however, began in 1929 at the Art Students League where she studied painting and drawing under the tuteledge of Kenneth Hayes Miller and Kimon Nicolaides. While at the League, Nevelson heard reports of the celebrated German painter/teacher Hans Hofmann, who was to become a significant figure in the development of Abstract Expressionism in America. In 1931, Nevelson arrived in Munich were she studied painting with Hofmann for a short time. While there her popularity among her peers in the art community and her dramatics background provided her with opportunities to participate as an extra in films being produced in Vienna and Berlin. Dissatisfied with this direction, she journeyed to Paris and studied the masters at the Louvre and primitive art at the Musee de l'Homme. After returning home for a short stint, and reenrolling at the Art Students League where she studied sculpting in addition to painting and drawing, she returned to Paris in 1932 to study art history, as well as painting and drawing. Upon her return to New York in the same year, she accepted an offer to assist the influential Mexican painter/muralist Diego Rivera with his Federal Art Project commissions for Rockefeller Center, the Rand School and the New Workers School on Fourteenth Street. Her tasks included mixing paint, applying washes, copying small sketches into the murals and researching historical fact for the social-protest murals. Future studies led Nevelson into the fields of etching, which will be discussed in further detail later, and lithography, which she learned at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles during the 1960's.
As early as 1933, Nevelson began exhibiting in group shows at various New York galleries and was given her first one-woman exhibition of sculpture at Nierendorf Gallery in 1941. Her first museum exhibition, which solidified her importance in the art world, took place in 1959 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, From this point, her recognition and popularity as an accomplished artist took hold and continued to escalate. By 1963 her reputation afforded her an invitation to participate at the World's Fair in Venice. Although the Swiss sculptor/painter Giacometti was awarded the prize, Nevelson was content with the honor of being selected to participate. Throughout her career, she received important recognition, including two honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees from Western College for Women in 1966 and Rutgers University in 1972. She was given her first major retrospective show at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in 1967 and one-woman exhibitions in prominent museums worldwide including the Rijksmuseum Kroller-Muller, Otterlo, Netherlands and the Museo Civico di Torino, Turin, Italy, both in 1969. Today her works can be viewed in numerous public and private collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Tate Gallery, London.
Louise Nevelson, an artist who identified with the Abstract Expressionists to the extent she went against traditional artistic values and practiced "spontaneous freedom of expression", never claimed to be influenced by any one person or occurrence in particular.(1) Rather she adhered to the belief she was molded by the culmination of all her experiences visual and otherwise.(2) During her formative years as an artist, beginning with her studies at the Art Students League in 1929 and continuing through the 1930's, several important influences can be discerned and their effects recognized in the works she executed throughout her lifetime. Cubism was perhaps the single most influential element on the artist's style. Later in life she recalled, after seeing reproductions of Picasso's Cubist works in the 1920's, "the purity and clarity of Cubism fit perfectly."(3) While at the Art Students League, she heard of Hans Hofmann in Munich who had acquired a Cubist background from time spent in Paris between 1904 and 1914. It was under Hofmann she was first exposed to Cubism's philosophy and techniques, which led to her development of an affinity for the style. During her second trip to Paris, she was further drawn to Cubism after once again coming into contact with the works of Picasso. Arnold Glimcher explains, "She began to recognize the cube in the late 1920's and began to understand it with Hofmann in 1931."(4) Nevelson is further quoted as saying, "I recognized it, I identified it, and it gave me the key to my stability."(5) Once this connection was made in the artist, the cube's effect on her became evident throughout her career. Another long-range influence that was aquired during Nevelson's early years was gleaned from her exposure to the cinema and the time spent with Diego Rivera. The cinema's large screen and Rivera's murals painted on vast walls gave Nevelson her appreciation of large scale. Yet another influence emerged in 1936 after the artist attended the exhibition Fantastic Art - Dada and Surrealism and Cubist and Abstract Art at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She had been aware of Surrealism for years, one source being Diego Rivera's wife, Frieda Kahlo, a Surrealist painter whom she befriended while assisting Rivera. Surrealism suggested to her landscapes constructed of her own individual pieces of sculpture. The appeal of Surrealism, Glimcher explains, "was the automatism of Surrealism's technical procedure, as it differed from the chance concept of Dada or the detached rationalism of abstract geometric art, that most influenced Nevelson."(6) Nevelson preferred the intuitive manner of process that defines automatism. Also influencing Nevelson was her exposure to primitive art during her second sojourn to Paris, her exposure to Mexican art under Rivera and American Indian art of which she stated, "I love the geometry of their form and the shallowness of their space." (7)
Through the combination of these influences, Louise Nevelson gradually created her own distinctive style, which is expressed most fluently in what have been termed 'sculptured walls'.(8) Nevelson is perhaps best known for these wall-like collage reliefs made of wood painted black, gold or white, plexiglass, metal or any combination of the three and constructed of boxes and compartments where abstract shapes and found objects such as chair legs and pieces of balustrades are assembled. The natural progression that led her to these walls began at the Art Students League in 1932 where she first began to sculpt in clay. After leaving the League in 1933, she continued to sculpt and exhibit pieces made of wood, terra-cotta, and cast stone. Nevelson exhibited sculpture at her first one-woman show in 1941. Glimcher notes that by creating an environment out of her individual pieces, this show can be cited as the first occasion that her assemblage technique, which is the most notable aspect of her walls, becomes evident. Around this same time she began collecting found objects, and after this show, began experimenting with mixed media including wood, metal and fabric. Nevelson continued to create environments, often incorporating a central theme, and began increasing her scale. Through the early 1950's she continued to assemble wooden sculpture, her preferred medium, and expand her scale. From 1950 through 1957, working mostly in wood now, her sculptural environments, referred to as landscapes, progressed from works constructed of recognizable elements, being the found objects she collected such as duck decoys and discarded bits of furniture, to pieces consisting of spikes and cubes and naturally found, unaltered objects. She now painted all of her sculpture black. From 1956 through 1957, Nevelson concentrated on producing shallow relief sculptures that combined natural forms with machine-cut, geometric shapes, and it was in the following year that Nevelson created her first wall quite by accident. For Christmas, 1957, she was given a case of liquor whose segmented box, she noticed, was itself a piece of sculpture and began positioning the existing relief and assemblage sculptures inside whatever crates or boxes she could accumulate, such as milk boxes and lettuce crates. As these boxes began overcrowding her studio, she began stacking them against the wall one on top of the other. From this necessary endeavor, her first wall was created, and in 1958 she exhibited her first installation of boxes and columnar units. International acclaim came quickly to Nevelson due to the novel design and construction of her 'sculptured walls'.
(1)Ian Chilvers, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford:Oxford University Press,1990),p.2. (2)Arnold B. Glimcher, Louise Nevelson (New York: Praeger Publishers,1972),p.54. (3)Glimcher,p.32. (4)Edward Albee, Louise Nevelson, Atmospheres and Environments (New York: Clarkston N. Potter,Inc. Publishers,1980),p.23. (5)Albee,p.23. (6)Glimcher,p.53. (7)Glimcher,p.41. (8)Chilvers,p.328.
Laura Pace 6/27/96
Artist Objects
