Louise NevelsonContemporary Abstract Sculptor 1899 - 1998

What was she thinking?

Louise Nevelson Film Trailer

Her story…

Born on September 23, 1899, in Kiev, Russia, Louise Nevelson studied Cubist art with Hans Hofmann and later at the Art Students League in New York City.

Nevelson began to attract attention in the early 1940s, and gained wide fame in the 1950s when museums began buying her work.

She is now considered one of America's most innovative sculptors. Nevelson died in New York City in 1988.

How did she do this?

“Combines” or

Assemblages

What formal elements is she using predominately?

Royal Tide IV 1968Louise Nevelson is an assemblage artist. Assemblage is where the artist finds things that are not normally intended for artwork then puts them together into something new. Nevelson collected scraps of wood littering the streets of New York City. If you look at the sculpture above, you'll see she found old, busted hunks of wood, old toilet seats, lamps, spindles from stairs and table legs. She builds these found objects into a single work of art, a series of panels or boxes in which the objects create a shallowspace and a rough texture. They pull your eye through the sculpture from one thin line of wood to a circle to a blanked wall of scrap. Nevelson's art is abstract, not meant to be anything in the real world, but it often reminds you of an idea such as a movement or religion. Unlike much sculpture, which invites you to look at it from all sides, Nevelson's work is meant to be seen mainly from the front.

 

Moon Star Zag VIII

Palace

Your title?

How is her art communicating?

What emotions does it evoke?

Could a 2 year old do this?

New Continent, 1962