Nevelson Aquatint

On 1stDibs, you can find the most appropriate nevelson aquatint for your needs in our varied inventory. Find Contemporary versions now, or shop for Contemporary creations for a more modern example of these cherished works. Finding the perfect nevelson aquatint may mean sifting through those created during different time periods — you can find an early version that dates to the 20th Century and a newer variation that were made as recently as the 20th Century. When looking for the right nevelson aquatint for your space, you can search on 1stDibs by color — popular works were created in bold and neutral palettes with elements of black, gray, beige and white. Artworks like these — often created in aquatint and etching — can elevate any room of your home.

The price for a nevelson aquatint in our collection starts at $1,498 and tops out at $8,500 with the average selling for $3,500.

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.

Decorating with fine art prints — whether they’re figurative prints, abstract prints or another variety — has always been a practical way of bringing a space to life as well as bringing works by an artist you love into your home.

Pursued in the 1960s and ’70s, largely by Pop artists drawn to its associations with mass production, advertising, packaging and seriality, as well as those challenging the primacy of the Abstract Expressionist brushstroke, printmaking was embraced in the 1980s by painters and conceptual artists ranging from David Salle and Elizabeth Murray to Adrian Piper and Sherrie Levine.

Printmaking is the transfer of an image from one surface to another. An artist takes a material like stone, metal, wood or wax, carves, incises, draws or otherwise marks it with an image, inks or paints it and then transfers the image to a piece of paper or other material.

Fine art prints are frequently confused with their more commercial counterparts. After all, our closest connection to the printed image is through mass-produced newspapers, magazines and books, and many people don’t realize that even though prints are editions, they start with an original image created by an artist with the intent of reproducing it in a small batch. Fine art prints are created in strictly limited editions — 20 or 30 or maybe 50 — and are always based on an image created specifically to be made into an edition.

Many people think of revered Dutch artist Rembrandt as a painter but may not know that he was a printmaker as well. His prints have been preserved in time along with the work of other celebrated printmakers such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol. These fine art prints are still highly sought after by collectors.

“It’s another tool in the artist’s toolbox, just like painting or sculpture or anything else that an artist uses in the service of mark making or expressing him- or herself,” says International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) vice president Betsy Senior, of New York’s Betsy Senior Fine Art, Inc.

Because artist’s editions tend to be more affordable and available than his or her unique works, they’re more accessible and can be a great opportunity to bring a variety of colors, textures and shapes into a space.

For tight corners, select small fine art prints as opposed to the oversized bold piece you’ll hang as a focal point in the dining area. But be careful not to choose something that is too big for your space. And feel free to lean into it if need be — not every work needs picture-hanging hooks. Leaning a larger fine art print against the wall behind a bookcase can add a stylish installation-type dynamic to your living room. (Read more about how to arrange wall art here.)

Find fine art prints for sale on 1stDibs today.