Louise Nevelson :

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Louise Nevelson :

Title :

Louise Nevelson : light and shadow / Laurie Wilson.

Title:

Louise Nevelson :

Varying Form of Title:

Light and shadow

Author:

Wilson, Laurie

Format:

Books

Physical Description:

506 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm

ISBN:

9780500094013

Production / Publication Information:

New York, NY ; London : Thames & Hudson, 2016.

Contents:

Russian roots 1899-1905 -- Rockland childhood 1905-1918 -- Marriage and motherhood 1920-1929 -- Art at last 1929-1934 -- The beginning of sculpture 1934-1940 -- Surrealism 1940-1946 -- Death and restoration 1946-1953 -- A forgotten village 1954-1957 -- Moon garden breakthrough 1957-1960 -- Glittering glory 1960-1962 -- Icarus 1962-1963 -- Architect of reflection 1964-1966 -- Empress of the environment 1966-1968 -- Mistress of transformation 1969-1971 -- La signora of Spring Street 1972-1974 -- Large scale 1975-1976 -- "The Nevelson" 1967-1988 -- The chapel and the palace 1977-1979 -- A big birthday 1980-1985 -- The end 1985-1988.

Summary:

Louise Nevelson (1899-1988) was, with Calder, Noguchi and David Smith, one of the great American sculptors of the 20th century. She created extraordinary work, from room-size installations composed of boxes to gnarled and majestic steel structures. Her life story is no less interesting. She was born in czarist Russia, but her family emigrated to the States and she grew up in Maine. Nevelson endured a repressive marriage to a New York millionaire, whom she escaped to pursue the life of an artist. She gained recognition as an abstract sculptor at the age of 59, and spent the next 30 years taking the art world by storm, becoming a colourful New York personality and minor celebrity. Laurie Wilson, who knew Nevelson personally, draws extensively on her own research in this crisp new biography. She conducted interviews not just with Nevelson but with her siblings, son, and gallery owner Arne Glimcher. Wilson has also had complete access to Glimcher's archives, Nevelson's personal assistant, Diana Mackown, and Lippincott studios, where much of Nevelson's work was cast, among others.

Bibliography note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 431-490) and index.

Language:

English

Added Author:

Nevelson, Louise, 1899-1988. Works. Selections.

Genre:

Biographies.

Personal Subject:

Nevelson, Louise, 1899-1988.

Subject Term:

Sculptors -- United States -- Biography.

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Material Type	Library	Call Number	Item Barcode	Location
Book	Searching... Westford - J.V. Fletcher Library	B NEVELSON	31990004407560	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

The most complete biography of the iconic sculptor Louise Nevelson, the groundbreaking artist and fixture of New York's art world based on hours of interviews the author conducted at the height of Nevelson's fame

In 1929, Louise Nevelson was a disappointed housewife with a young son, surrounded by New York's vibrant artistic community but unable to fully engage with it. By 1950, she was an artist living on her own, financially dependent on her family, but she had received a glimmer of recognition from the establishment: inclusion in a group show at the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 1980, Nevelson celebrated her second Whitney retrospective. Her work was held in public collections around the world; her massive steel sculptures appeared in public spaces in seventeen states, including the Louise Nevelson Plaza in New York City's Financial District.

The story of Nevelson's artistic, spiritual, even physical transformation (she developed a taste for outrageous outfits and false eyelashes made of mink) is dramatic, complex, and inseparable from major historical and cultural shifts of the twentieth century, particularly in the art world. Art historian and psychoanalyst Laurie Wilson brings a unique and sensitive perspective to Nevelson's story, drawing on hours of interviews she conducted with Nevelson and her circle. Over 100 images, many of them drawn from personal archives and never before published, make this the most visually and narratively comprehensive biography of this remarkable artist yet published.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In this biography of Ukrainian-born American sculpture artist Louise Nevelson (1899-1988), who's famous for her work with shadow boxes and black wooden walls, Wilson (Alberto Giacometti: Myth, Magic, and the Man), a practicing psychoanalyst who teaches at NYU, uses her professional expertise to explore the inner life and motivations of the artist and her artwork. Nevelson herself is a fascinating, idiosyncratic character, in part because she crafted a persona for herself that sometimes even upstaged her art: she donned fake eyelashes, furs, and turbans even in the summer heat, lived a sexually uninhibited single-woman lifestyle in conservative mid-century America, and eschewed food and sleep in order to work nonstop. Wilson details the artist's eccentricities and places Nevelson's success in the context of the 1970s, specifically the male-dominated contemporary art scene in N.Y.C. Her descriptions of Nevelson's art are vivid, carefully observed, and insightful, but her fixation on Freudian psychoanalysis-she traces much of Nevelson's motifs and artistic choices (the color black, weddings) to her failed marriage and her longing for her mother-is distracting and often grating. 98 illus. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* After three harrowing decades struggling for recognition, Louise Nevelson achieved spectacular success as an artist of towering originality with a dazzlingly provocative public persona. But after her death in 1988, the prolific and flamboyant artist's work faded from view. Nevelson was the subject of Wilson's art-history doctoral dissertation back in the mid-1970s, so this capacious, precisely detailed biography, the first in a quarter-century, was a long time in the making and consequently brims with diligently mined and carefully weighed revelations. Wilson follows Nevelson from her early childhood in pogrom-ravaged Ukraine to her youth as part of a painfully conspicuous Jewish immigrant family in Rockland, Maine. Marriage granted her a luxurious New York City life and a son but neither love nor happiness. Depressed to near-paralysis and haunted by guilt over her failure as a mother, Nevelson, barely scraping by on her own, developed a metaphysically steeped aesthetic, and built mysterious assemblages out of wooden scraps painted black, grand and bewitching works that helped establish installation art. Possessed of unceasing vitality and forcefulness, as well as artistic verve, Nevelson also created enormous outdoor sculptures of aluminum and steel. Wilson's fascinating, well-illustrated explication of Nevelson's artistic quest reignites appreciation for the profound complexity, evocative beauty, and mystical power of her work.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2016 Booklist

Introduction	p. 3
1 Russian Roots 1899 - 1905	p. 13
2 Rockland Childhood 1905 - 1918	p. 31
3 Marriage and Motherhood 1920 - 1929	p. 49
4 Art at Last 1929- 1934	p. 71
5 The Beginning of Sculpture 1934- 1940	p. 91
6 Surrealism 1940 - 1946	p. 109
7 Death and Restoration 1946 - 1953	p. 135
8 A Forgotten Village 1954 - 1957	p. 159
9 Moon Garden Breakthrough 1957 - 1960	p. 179
10 Glittering Glory 1960 - 1962	p. 201
11 Icarus 1962 - 1963	p. 221
12 Architect of Reflection 1964 - 1966	p. 241
13 Empress of the Environment 1966 - 1968	p. 261
14 Mistress of Transformation 1969 - 1971	p. 281
15 La Signora of Spring Street 1972 - 1974	p. 305
16 Large Scale 1975 - 1976	p. 331
17 "The Nevelson" 1967 - 1988	p. 349
18 The Chapel and the Palace 1977 - 1979	p. 361
19 A Big Birthday 1980 - 1985	p. 385
20 The End 1985 - 1988	p. 409
Epilogue	p. 429
Endnotes	p. 431
Selected Bibliography	p. 477
Acknowledgments	p. 491
Index	p. 493

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Summary

Summary

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Booklist Review

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