Louise Nevelson

(1899 – 1988)

A pioneer of assemblage art, Louise Nevelson emigrated from Russia to Maine with her family in 1905. At an early age she played with scraps from her father's successful lumberyard, and by age 10 she had decided to become a professional sculptor. In 1920, she married Charles Nevelson and moved to New York where she studied at the Art Students League from 1928 to 1930. In 1931, she left for Europe where she briefly attended Hans Hofmann’s school in Munich, only to return under his tutelage at the Art Students League in 1932. In 1933, Nevelson began assisting Diego Rivera on murals he was executing under the W.P.A. Federal Art Project, who also employed her as a teacher at the Educational Alliance School of Art in lower Manhattan. Nevertheless, Nevelson remained practically unknown as an artist until her a one-woman show at the Nierendorf Gallery in New York in 1941.

Nevelson represented the U.S. in the 1962 Venice Biennale. She is collected in many museums including: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Tate Gallery, London; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. and MOMA San Francisco.