50 Facts About Louise Nevelson

Louise Nevelson was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures.

Louise Nevelson experimented with early conceptual art using found objects, and dabbled in painting and printing before dedicating her lifework to sculpture.

Louise Nevelson's work has been included in museum and corporate collections in Europe and North America.

Louise Nevelson remains one of the most important figures in 20th-century American sculpture.

Louise Nevelson was born Leah Berliawsky in 1899 in Pereiaslav, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire, to Minna Sadie and Isaac Berliawsky, a contractor and lumber merchant.

Louise Nevelson worked as a woodcutter before opening a junkyard.

Louise Nevelson was very close to her mother, who suffered from depression, perhaps brought on by the family's migration from Russia and their minority status as a Jewish family living in Maine.

Louise Nevelson painted watercolor interiors, in which furniture appeared molecular in structure, rather like her later professional work.

Unhappy with her family's economic status, language differences, the religious discrimination of the community, and her school, Louise Nevelson set her sights on moving to high school in New York.

Louise Nevelson graduated from high school in 1918, and began working as a stenographer at a local law office.

Bernard introduced her to his brother, and Charles and Louise Nevelson were married in June 1920 in a Jewish wedding at the Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston.

Louise Nevelson became pregnant, and in 1922 she gave birth to her son Myron, who grew up to be a sculptor.

Louise Nevelson was upset with the move, which removed her from city life and her artistic environment.

Louise Nevelson never sought financial support from Charles, and in 1941 the couple divorced.

Louise Nevelson credited an exhibition of Noh kimono at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a catalyst for her to study art further.

Louise Nevelson met Diego Rivera in 1933 and worked as his assistant on his mural Man at the Crossroads at Rockefeller Plaza.

Shortly thereafter, Louise Nevelson started taking sculpture classes at the Educational Alliance.

Louise Nevelson continued to experiment with other artistic mediums, including lithography and etching, but decided to focus on sculpture.

Louise Nevelson worked for the WPA in the easel painting and sculpture divisions until 1939.

Louise Nevelson created ink and pencil drawings, terra-cotta semi-abstract animals and oil paintings.

In 1941, Louise Nevelson had her first solo exhibition at Nierendorf Gallery, which represented her until 1947.

Louise Nevelson displayed the box at the Museum of Modern Art, bringing her the first major attention she received from the press.

In that year, Louise Nevelson exhibited her work in Peggy Guggenheim's show Exhibition by 31 Women at the Art of This Century gallery in New York.

Louise Nevelson began teaching sculpture classes in adult education programs in the Great Neck public school system.

In 1955, Louise Nevelson joined Colette Roberts' Grand Central Modern Gallery, where she had numerous one-woman shows.

In 1958, Carton helped Louise Nevelson join Martha Jackson Gallery, where he worked and exhibited.

However, at this time Louise Nevelson was offered a funded, six-week artist fellowship at Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles, which allowed her to escape the drama of New York City.

At Tamarind, Louise Nevelson made twenty-six lithographs, becoming the most productive artist to complete the fellowship up until that time.

Louise Nevelson joined Pace Gallery in the fall of 1963, where she had shows regularly until the end of her career.

In 1967 the Whitney Museum hosted the first retrospective of Louise Nevelson's work, showing over one hundred pieces, including drawings from the 1930s and contemporary sculptures.

Louise Nevelson hired several assistants over the years, including Diana MacKown.

Louise Nevelson continued to utilize wood in her sculptures, but experimented with other materials such as aluminum, plastic and metal.

Louise Nevelson embraced the idea of her works being able to withstand climate change and the freedom in moving beyond limitations in size.

In spite of that, Louise Nevelson was awarded the Edward MacDowell Medal in 1969.

When Louise Nevelson was developing her style, many of her artistic colleagues were welding metal to create large-scale sculptures.

Louise Nevelson decided to go in the opposite direction by exploring the streets for inspiration and finding it in wood.

Louise Nevelson took found objects and spray painted them to disguise their actual function or meaning.

Louise Nevelson called herself "the original recycler" owing to her extensive use of discarded objects.

Louise Nevelson researched the Noh robes and the gold coin collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for inspiration.

Louise Nevelson's work has been exhibited in many American galleries, including the Anita Shapolsky Gallery, Woodward Gallery, and Pace Gallery in New York City and the Margot Gallery in Lake Worth, Florida.

Louise Nevelson's work is included in museum collections worldwide such as Perez Art Museum Miami, Florida; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC; Tate, London; the Whitney Museum of American Art, Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Guggenheim Museum.

In 1978, New York created a sculpture garden, Louise Nevelson Plaza, located between Maiden Lane, Liberty Street and William Street in Lower Manhattan, to showcase her sculptures.

In December 1978, Louise Nevelson dedicated another public sculpture in the Lower Manhattan; titled Sky Gate, New York it was installed in the mezzanine lobby of 1 World Trade Center on the opposite site of Financial District.

Louise Nevelson constructed her sculpture much as she constructed her past: shaping each with her legendary sense of self as she created an extraordinary iconography through abstract means.

Between 1966 and 1979, Louise Nevelson donated her papers to numerous non-profit institutions in several instalments.

Documentation showed that Louise Nevelson had bequeathed these works to her friend and assistant of 25 years, Diana MacKown.

Louise Nevelson has been a fundamental key in the feminist art movement.

Louise Nevelson believed that art reflected the individual, not "masculine-feminine labels", and chose to take on her role as an artist, not a female artist.

You'll deny both these facts and you might even insist Louise Nevelson is a man, when you see her Portraits in Paint, showing this month at the Nierendorf Gallery.

Louise Nevelson was the most determined, the most forceful, the most difficult.