Louise Nevelson (1899-1988) was born in Czarist Russia in 1899. As a young child she immigrated with her family to the United States. In the early 1930s she began attending art classes at the Art Students League of New York and in 1941 she had her first solo exhibition. Nevelson began experimenting with early conceptual art using found objects, dabbling in painting and printing, before dedicating her lifework to sculpture. Her first relief sculptures were created in 1957. These shadow boxes and wall constructions were to become her signature pieces. Working primarily with wood, Nevelson composed her works as she went along, a method modeled on the fluid movements of performance. She saw her work as a collection of elements constantly at play, a never-ending dialogue of relationships.
Nevelson’s selected public collections include The Art Institute of Chicago, The Brooklyn Museum (New York), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), The Jewish Museum (New York), The Museum of Modern Art (New York, Tate Gallery (London), Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), and the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York).
