VAM galleries including this work:
The Kentucky Center | What’s in a Name? || VAM Home

Louise Nevelson relied on a grid or pillar format for almost all of her sculptures, but she always undermined the sense of ordered rationality that a geometrical or architectural vocabulary implies. Her mysterious cabinets of discarded carpentry suggest shadowy magic—a muffled, sinister romanticism. Her wall-sized environments are composed of a profusion of objects intuitively linked together. Different levels of clarity, density, and blankness, like different levels of depth within the sculptures, provide the visual equivalent of poetic rhythm and metaphor. The color black, which Nevelson called “the essence of the universe,” unifies the scrap components of her art.

Mayan and Aztec hieroglyphs and architecture were particular influences on Nevelson’s art. Like her contemporaries, she used repetition to suggest obsessional imagery welling up from the subconscious. The shadow-box concept for Night Wave Moon was inspired by Nevelson’s use of vegetable and fruit crates stacked on their sides in her own apartment. Some of the wood used in the piece was gathered on-site during the construction of the Kentucky Center.

About the Artist

Born Louise Berliawsky in September 1899 in Kiev, Russia, Louise Nevelson immigrated with her family to the United States in 1905. In 1920, she married Charles Nevelson, and the couple moved to New York. There Louise enrolled in the Art Students League in 1928. During her time there, she was introduced to the innovative works of such artists as Marcel Duchamp and Pablo Picasso. In 1931, she briefly attended the Hans Hoffmann School in Munich, Germany.

When she returned to New York in 1932, Nevelson worked on WPA Federal Art Project murals under Mexican artist Diego Rivera (1886-1957). Not long after that, she began working primarily in sculpture. In 1937, she was hired as a WPA teacher at the Educational Alliance School of Art; in 1965, she was elected president of National Artists Equity; and in 1966, she became vice president of the International Association of Artists. The following year marked Nevelson’s first major retrospective exhibit, held at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Nevelson’s work is in the collections of many important museums and galleries.

Classroom Ideas

Discussion: How do you think the title Night Wave Moon relates to this piece? Can you tell how the artist constructed this sculpture? Discuss the use of balance, texture, and form in this piece. How would this work be different if it were painted in bright colors as opposed to black? Why do you think the artist chose to paint it black?

Activity: Gather an empty shoebox and objects that vary in shape and size. Arrange the objects in the box so that they make an interesting composition—almost like a diorama. Glue the objects together. Choose a single color of spray paint and paint your entire sculpture that color.

Links

See the Artcyclopedia for a comprehensive guide to online resources about Nevelson and her work.
[www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/nevelson_louise.html]

Read an interview with Nevelson in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.
[www.aaa.si.edu/oralhist/nevels72.htm]

Sculpture: Putting It All Together is a lesson plan based on Nevelson’s art from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
[www.albrightknox.org/ArtStart/lNevelson.html]