The United Gas Pipe Line Company Collection

UGPL 0140 Nevelson, Louise, untitled, 81/90, aquatint with collage, 39” x 27-3/8,” 1975

Louise Nevelson (1900- )

Written in 1976 for the catalog and reproduced as printed, with spelling corrected. Not current.

Louise Nevelson was one of the first American sculptors to create what has come to be known as “environmental” works. After her first one-woman show in 1941, her affinities with primitive art evidenced in her terra cottas and wood pieces, and the great dramatic presence of her later assemblages begun in the 1950’s have earned her a reputation as one of America’s foremost contemporary sculptors.

Nevelson was born in 1900 in Kiev, Russia, and came to America when only five. In New York, at age 20, she began the study of painting and drawing; attended the Art Students’ League in 1929 and 1930; studied in Munich in 1931 with Hans Hofmann; and was chosen by Mexican muralist Diego Rivera to assist in the painting of a mural for the New Workers’ School in 1932.

She is best known for monochromatic wood assemblage relief sculpture in black, all white, or gold; but she later worked in both formica and steel. Since the 1950’s, her work has been exhibited all over the world: a major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 1967; at the Whitney Museum in 1970; the Venice Biennale; the Tate Gallery; the Carnegie and Guggenheim Museums, and the Musee Rodin in Paris are among those institutions honoring Louise Nevelson.

From The Art Collection of United Gas Pipe Line Company (Houston, 1976), curated by Susan Rush.