Louise Nevelson
Big Black 1963
To create this sculpture, Nevelson stacked boxes against a wall and filled each compartment with found wooden scraps including moldings, dowels, spindles, and furniture parts. She then covered the entire assemblage with black paint, both unifying the composition and obscuring the individual objects.
She once explained her fascination with the color black: "It wasn't a negation of color. It was an acceptance. Because black encompasses all colors."
The towering geometric construction plays with flatness and recession, straight lines and curves, overlaps and vacancies.
Gallery label from Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction, April 19-August 13, 2017.
MOMA
MOMA - LOUISE NEVELSON
Louise Nevelson (September 23, 1899 – April 17, 1988) was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures.
Born in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine), she emigrated with her family to the United States in the early 20th century. Nevelson learned English at school, as she spoke Yiddish at home.
By the early 1930s she was attending art classes at the Art Students League of New York, and in 1941 she had her first solo exhibition.
Nevelson experimented with early conceptual art using found objects, and dabbled in painting and printing before dedicating her lifework to sculpture.
Usually created out of wood, her sculptures appear puzzle-like, with multiple intricately cut pieces placed into wall sculptures or independently standing pieces, often 3-D. The sculptures are typically painted in monochromatic black or white.
A prominent figure in the international art scene, Nevelson participated in the 31st Venice Biennale.
Her work has been included in museum and corporate collections in Europe and North America. Nevelson remains one of the most important figures in 20th-century American sculpture.
Big Black 1963
Medium: Painted wood
Dimensions: 9' 1/4" x 10' 5 3/4" x 12" (274.9 x 319.5 x 30.5 cm)
Credit: Gift of Vera G. List
Object number: 229.1991.a-nn
Copyright: © 2023 Estate of Louise Nevelson / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Department: Painting and Sculpture