Louise Nevelson was born Louise Berliawsky on September 23, 1899, in Kiev, Russia. By 1905, her family had emigrated to the United States and settled in Rockland, Maine. In 1920, she married Charles Nevelson and moved to New York. At this time, she studied visual and performing arts, including dramatics, with Frederick Kiesler. Nevelson enrolled at the Art Students League in 1928 and also studied with Hilla Rebay. During this period, she was introduced to the work of Marcel Duchamp and Pablo Picasso. In 1931, while traveling in Europe, she briefly attended Hans Hofmann’s school in Munich. Nevelson returned to New York in 1932 and assisted Diego Rivera on murals he was executing under the WPA Federal Art Project. Shortly thereafter, in the early 1930s, she turned to sculpture. Between 1933 and 1936, Nevelson’s work was included in numerous group exhibitions in New York, and in 1937 she joined the WPA as a teacher for the Educational Alliance School of Art.

Nevelson’s first solo show took place in 1941 at the Nierendorf Gallery in New York. In 1943, she began her Farm assemblages, in which pieces of wood and found objects were incorporated. She studied etching with Stanley William Hayter at his Atelier 17 in New York in 1947, and in 1949–50 worked in marble and terra-cotta and executed her totemic Game Figures. Nevelson showed in 1953 and 1955 at the Grand Central Moderns Gallery in New York. In 1957, she made her first reliefs in shadow boxes as well as her first wall. Two years later, Nevelson participated in her first important museum exhibition, Sixteen Americans at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Martha Jackson Gallery gave her a solo show. She was included in the Venice Biennale in 1962.

Nevelson was elected president of National Artists Equity in 1965 and the following year she became vice-president of the International Association of Artists. Her first major museum retrospective took place in 1967 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Princeton University commissioned Nevelson to create a monumental outdoor steel sculpture in 1969, the same year the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gave her a solo exhibition. Other Nevelson shows took place in 1970 at the Whitney Museum of American Art and in 1973 at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

 

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan

Albany Mall Project, Albany, New York

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut

Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, Pennsylvania

Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, University of Texas, Austin, Texas

The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

The Art Museum, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey

The Art Museum at Florida International University, Miami, Florida

Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

City of Binghamton, New York

Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama

Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts

The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York

Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia

City Art Museum, Saint Louis, Missouri

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio

The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas

Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, Delaware

The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan

Fairmont Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine

Fine Art Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, California

Friends of Art and Preservation in Embassies, Washington, D.C.

Fukutake Collection, Okayama, Japan

Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino, Torino, Italy

The Grey Art Gallery and Study Center, New York University Art Collection, New York, New York

Hakone Open-Air Museum, Hakone-machi, Japan

Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan

High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia

Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Hospital Corporation of America, Chicago, Illinois

Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana

Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel

The Jewish Museum, New York, New York

Julliard School of Music, Lincoln Center, New York, New York

Kawamura Memorial Museum, Japan

Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark

Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida

Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, Michigan

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York

Minnesota Museum of Art, Saint Paul, Minnesota

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Canada

Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

Musée de Grenoble, Grenoble, France

Musée de Peinture et de Sculpture, Grenoble, France

Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France

Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands

Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany

Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island

Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, Texas

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York

The Museum of Modern Art, Toyama, Japan

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana

City of New York, New York

The Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey

Nordjyllands Kunstmuseum, Ålborg, Denmark

North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina

Norton Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena, California

Ohara Museum of Art, Kurashiki, Okayama, Japan

Openluchtmuseum voor Beeldhouwkunst Middelheim, Antwerp, Belgium

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona

Queens College, Queens, New York

Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, The Netherlands

Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts

San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, California

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland

City of Scottsdale, Arizona

Sezon Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan

The Sogetsu Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York

Sonje Museum of Contemporary Art, Kyungje, Korea

Storm King Art Center, Sculpture Park, Mountainville, New York

Tate Gallery, London, England

Temple Israel, Boston, Massachusetts

The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio

University of Nebraska Art Galleries - Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln, Nebraska

Wakayama Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama, Japan

Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York

Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut