Louise Nevelson - A Picture A Day

Texture, sculpture, large scale; all things I admire! Especially when created by a beautifully independent woman.

Louise Nevelson, Royal Tide I, 1960, painted wood, 86 x 40 x 8 inches

Louise Nevelson (1899–1988) was known for her monumental sculptures and her practice of constructing them from found wood. Her autobiographical works symbolically address issues of marriage, motherhood, death, Jewish culture, memory and (although she resisted the label) feminism.

Her groundbreaking technique involved assembling cast-off wood pieces and transforming them with coats of monochromatic black, white, and (more rarely) gold spray paint. Nevelson’s work started with tabletop scale objects, but quickly grew into human-scale and room-sized works.

Untitled, 1968

While making a reputation for her sculptural bravado, Nevelson also cultivated her extravagant personal style, which included long dresses and mink eyelashes, to dovetail with her desire to express emotion through art.  “Everytime I put on clothes, I’m creating a picture.”

Dawn's Wedding Feast, 1959

Nevelson created this room-size installation in 1959—her first foray into white wood sculpture—for the now legendary exhibition Sixteen Americans at the Museum of Modern Art. She originally hoped that a patron would purchase it in its entirety. Finding no single buyer, Nevelson reconfigured the components of the installation into sixteen stand-alone sculptures, and eventually they were sold to private collections and museums.

Close-up of  Dawn, Chapel IV

“Humans really are heir to every possibility within themselves, and it is only up to us to admit it and accept it. You see, you can buy the whole world and you are empty, but when you create the whole world, you are full.”