(Leah Berliawsky, married name Nevelson)
born on September 23, 1899 in Kiev, Russian Empire (today: Ukraine)
died on April 17, 1988 in New York City, United States
US-American sculptor and graphic artist
125th birthday on September 23, 2024
Biography
It is not surprising that the costume department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art took an interest in Louise Nevelson's dress collection given that in the course of her long life she had amassed a veritable theatrical treasure trove of silks, lace and furs that she would use for dramatic effect when in public. Dressed in dazzlingly colorful kimonos and with eyes framed by several layers of false black eyelashes, she continued to attract attention on the New York art scene well into old age. Along with Louise Bourgeois, she was the most famous American sculptor of the century.
When Lea Berliawsky was five years old, her parents emigrated from Russia to the United States. She escaped from her family and small American town to New York City at an early age, married and gave birth to a son, whom she soon left behind with her parents in order to study in Munich and Paris. Looking back on her life, she declared: “The only mistake I made was that I got married.” She devoted herself entirely to her work after correcting the mistake: “I am married to it. There’s nothing I feel closer to.”
From then on, she lived with her assistant Diana Mckown, a cat and a dog in her New York studio. The house was overflowing with her found objects: scraps of wood, table and chair legs, and furniture fragments. She stored them all in boxes and then arranged the boxes in meter-high sculptural structures that, completely immersed in one color (black, white or gold), conveyed a sacred aura. These unique object boxes (“shadow boxes”) were her artistic breakthrough in the mid-1950s. She later worked in a similar way with metal parts (sculpture collages), combining found objects that she cut and assembled. Her creations became increasingly monumental. She would often turn down the increasingly frequent public commissions for open-air sculptures, refusing to allow clients or architects to impose restrictions on her artistic freedom. Louise Nevelson built her world according to her own ideas and felt vindicated by her success: her works are now an integral part of many contemporary art collections. The Whitney Museum in New York celebrated her 80th birthday with a major retrospective that she helped to plan.
(Text from 1998; translated with DeepL.com; edited by Ramona Fararo, 2024. Please consult the German version for additional information, pictures, sources, videos, and bibliography.)
Quotes
People carry all possibilities within them. And it is up to each of us to allow or accept them. You can buy the whole world and feel empty, but if you create a whole world, you feel fulfilled.
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