The 23rd day of September 1899 witnessed the birth one of the greatest artists of the 20th Century, Louise Nevelson. she was born at Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine. Louise Nevelson’s family migrated to the U.S. in 1905 & settled at Rockland. she was one of the most famous American Abstract Expressionists.
Abstract Expressionism is a type of art in which the artists express themselves purely through forms and colors. this term has a closer relation with Surrealism than Expressionism. Sometimes it so happens that while playing with colors, artists are completely different & even unknown to them. In the process, they express their hidden & buried thoughts & imaginations. Louise was one such passionate sculptor.
She used to paint every object and box of her sculpture the same dull & glowing black, and unifying them visually, while also obscuring their original identities. this gives a wild hint about her personality & her nature of unifying things, while giving equal importance to every unit rather than their display as a whole. Louise was believed to be very much self-aware. she knew that cultivating an image, however contrived or flamboyant, would earn her recognition. Nevelson was a great sculptor who created many unique artistic sculptures from the everyday discarded materials. she started etching while working in a printmaking workshop.
Her first etching was Flower Queen. Sky Cathedral (1982) was one of her most famous sculptures. this was a room-sized sculpture of stacked boxes filled with the fragments of carved wood from waste such as broken chairs etc. some of Nevelson’s other famous works include but are not limited to Dawn’s Presence II (1969-1975), dark Presence-III (1971), Maquette for Night Wall-I (1976-79), and Night Star (1981). One of her another known sculptures, Homage to 6,000.000 (1964) was a memorial to the Jews killed in holocaust during World War II.
Most of Louise Nevelson’s works have a teaching or a message as their soul, making them prudent. she also used metals for her sculptures such as Atmosphere & Environment-I (1966), made of Aluminum & Black Epoxy Enamel, expressed her audacious concern about the environment. at one of the exhibitions of Louises work, famous artist Willie Cole said that her sculptures are not memento mort they are just dead. Their handsomeness is derived from their inertia.
Nevelson was not just an exceptional artist, but she also possessed leadership qualities, which are quite evident from her social life.she was the President of Artist’s Equity New York Chapter (1957-59). Two-time President of National Artist’s Equity (1962 & 1963); she was also the First Vice-President of The Federation of Modern Painter’s & Sculptors (1962). she received an honorary degree from Smith College, Northampton, MA, in 1973 & in 1977 from Columbia University, New York, for her remarkable artistic work.
Louise Nevelson passed away tragically on April 17 1988 in her home at New York. In her honor, an area near the World Trade Center in New York is named after her as Nevelson Plaza.
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