Louise Nevelson (Sept 23, 1899 – April 17, 1988)

 

I have a particular interest in Louis Nevelson. Abstract expressionist painter Norman Carton (1908-1980) had befriended Dorothy and Mel Tanner when the Tanners returned to Manhattan in 1963 after living in Syracuse where they had an art school. Mr. Carton, a generation older than them, introduced them to Louise Nevelson, who only began to sell her art work around 1960, 40 years after she started professionally. She later became quite a celebrity, “more popular than Andy Warhol!”

 

The Tanners formed the Granite Art Association, which organized seminars, forums, and exhibitions. One of the forums was “The New Face in Art Forum and Exhibition” in 1964 which took place at the Loeb Student Center at New York University. Participants included artists Norman Carton, Louise Nevelson, a young Red Grooms, and art critic Gordon Brown. In addition to organizing the Forum with Norman Carton, the Tanners co-curated The New Face in Art Exhibition and showed their work with artists that included Louis Schanker, Murray Hantman, and Leo Quanchi.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_and_Dorothy_Tanner

 

Born in Russia, Louise Nevelson moved with her family to Rockland, Maine, in 1905. She felt like an outsider while growing up and apart from her art classes, she did not enjoy being in school.
https://americanart.si.edu/artist/louise-nevelson-3523

Photo: Arnold Newman, New York, 1972

 

Atmosphere and Environment XII

 

“Sky Cathedral,” 1982 (painted wood)
Smithsonian’s American Art Museum

 

“Transparent Sculpture VII,” 1967-68

‘Black Zag X,’ 1969 Wood, paint, and formica

 

“The outside world pressures you into a mold, but if you don’t accept that – you gamble with life. I don’t demand that all work be a masterpiece. What I am doing is the right thing for me – that is what I am and this is living. It reflects me and I reflect it. Creation is always kind of innocent and refreshing… always virginal to me… and it’s always a surprise. I’m in tune with the right vibrations in the universe when I’m in the process of working.”

“My total conscious search in life has been for a new seeing, a new image, a new insight.
This search not only includes the object, but the in-between place. The dawns and the dusks. The objective world, the heavenly spheres, the places between the land and sea…Whatever creation man invents, the image can be found in nature. We cannot see anything that we are not already aware of. The inner, the outer = One.”
— Louise Nevelson by John Gordon, Whitney Museum of Art, 1967, p.12

“Black is the most aristocratic color of all…There is no color that will give you the feeling of totality. Of peace. Of greatness. Of quietness. Of excitement.”

“…in life you cannot dig for the truth in every area. Must there be an answer? You take a flower, and you take every petal, and you won’t have a flower. Keep the flower.”

“The nature of creation is that you have to go inside and dig out. The very nature of creation is not a performing glory on the outside, it’s a painful, difficult search within.”

— Louise Nevelson, Dawns and Dusks: Taped Conversations With Diana MacKown, 1976

 

Years ago, in New York, someone said to me, ‘What are you going to do when you find out that maybe you’re a fourth-rate artist?’ Well, who’s to judge? As far as I’m concerned, I’m an artist and I wanted to live my life that way and I had the courage not to permit—I didn’t give anyone the right to superimpose on what I felt. I claimed my life. I still do. No one is living for me. No one is suffering for me. No one is supporting me. And I think the first thing you should do is stand up on your own two feet and look in the mirror and like yourself and say, ‘Sure, this is my life and I’m going to live it.’”
interview in 1977

 

Installation view of “Louise Nevelson: Persistence,” 2022, at Procuratie Vecchie, Venice
.PHOTO: LORENZO PALMIERI

Louise Nevelson, Cascade VII, 1979, wood painted black. 8′ 6″ x 10′ 7″ x 1′ 4″