Volcanic Magic XXV

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Louise Nevelson
Volcanic Magic XXV
1985

About the Item

Louise Nevelson, known for both her larger-than-life artistic creations and personality, was a pioneer of modernist sculpture in mid-century America. She pushed the boundaries of both sculpture and painting with her puzzle-like, found object constructions in matte, monochromatic tones. The present collage, among her final works and hailing from her acclaimed Volcanic Magic series, represents some of the most visually impactful and uninhibited work of her career. A thoughtful and balanced assemblage of wood, metal and paper, this work demonstrates both Nevelson’s lifelong fascination with found objects and her willingness to experiment with her favorite motifs. For Nevelson, manipulating and combining discarded objects was an opportunity to call to mind familiar images from the surrounding world, allowing the objects to transcend their original form. This is true more than ever in her Volcanic Magic series, in which the artist takes a bold departure from her earlier works, which were unified by a single color. By leaving her objects in a more natural state rather than coating them in paint, Nevelson explores contrasting textures while encouraging a study of each individual element of the composition. Nevelson was born in 1899 in czarist Russia, but her family emigrated to the small, coastal town of Rockland, Maine when she was a child. Her father owned a lumberyard where Nevelson grew up playing with scraps and wood, and she began taking art classes as a teenager. At the age of 20, she married and moved to New York where she was drawn into the city’s vibrant artistic community, and after her marriage ended, she studied with abstract painter Hans Hofmann in Munich, who introduced her to Cubism and collage. She began creating her signature abstract assemblages in the 1950s, which bulleted her to the forefront of mid-century New York’s gallery system. She participated in the pioneering Sixteen Americans group show at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1959–60 and was showcased at the prestigious Venice Biennale of 1962. Today, Nevelson’s works belong to important modern art collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Guggenheim (New York) and the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, D.C.), among others. Created in 1985 Board: 39 5/8" high x 31 3/4" wide Frame: 41 5/8" high x 33 5/8" wide

Creator:
Louise Nevelson (1899 - 1988, American)
Creation Year:
1985
Dimensions:
Height: 41.63 in (105.75 cm)Width: 33.63 in (85.43 cm)
Medium:
Metal,Wood,Paper
Movement & Style:
Modern
Period:
20th Century
Condition:
Gallery Location:
New Orleans, LA
Reference Number:
Seller: 31-39221stDibs: LU1868771112

Shop All Louise Nevelson

Louise Nevelson

Louise Nevelson was one of the leading American female sculptors of the 20th century, and she did it on her own terms. She was a pioneer of installation art and created large-scale monochromatic sculptures that are today known for their provocative, compartmentalized forms. While her assemblages involved a range of materials, she is best known for her wooden sculptures. Working in a single color was her signature, and all-encompassing color demanded an all-encompassing focus for this artist — she even kept separate studios for work in black, white and gold.

Nevelson was born in what is now Ukraine in 1899 and emigrated to the United States with her family in 1905. She moved to New York City as a young woman in 1920 to study at the Art Students League. In the 1930s, Nevelson traveled around Europe, came into contact with the works of Picasso, studied with Hans Hofmann and assisted Diego Rivera in New York City.

Nevelson had her first solo show in 1941 at the Nierendorf Gallery in New York. In the late 1940s, she studied with Stanley William Hayter and worked as a ceramicist in the workshop of revered furniture designer Vladimir Kagan, who let her take scraps from the factory to use in her sculptures. (As a child, Nevelson had also worked with discarded wood from her father's lumber yard.)

By the early 1950s, Nevelson had traveled to Guatemala and Mexico. She was inspired by pre-Columbian art and the totemic works of ancient cultures. Nevelson began creating the first of her iconic wood sculptures and later participated in the legendary “Sixteen Americans” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Her work was acquired by prominent institutions in the years that followed.

Nevelson made reliefs in shadow boxes and was for a time affiliated with New York City’s Sidney Janis Gallery as its first female Abstract Expressionist artist (her work was abstract but she also drew on the Cubist and Constructivist movements). In the early 1960s, Nevelson showed her art in Chicago, Manhattan, Paris and West Germany. It was around this time that she exhibited at Pace Gallery in Boston and New York. The gallery represented her for the duration of her career.

Nevelson died in 1988, but her legacy is immense. Her work is held in virtually every major American art museum, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art. Her permanent large-scale public sculptures are installed all over the country, including in Louise Nevelson Plaza in New York City's Financial District.

On 1stDibs, find original Louise Nevelson sculptures, prints and drawings.