Lot 3469 - A209 PostWar & Contemporary - Thursday, 20. June 2024, 02.00 PM
LOUISE NEVELSON
(Perejaslaw 1899–1988 New York)
Sky Gate VII. 1973.
Wood, painted.
50.7 × 48.2 × 5 cm.
Provenance:
- Galerie hm, Brussels (with the label on the frame).
- Auction Sotheby's, New York, 27.9.2010, lot 67.
- Private collection, Switzerland, acquired from the above auction by the present owner.
Exhibited:
As one of the most important American sculptors of the 20th century, Louise Nevelson created a unique body of work in which found objects, wood, monochrome black and shadow play a central role.
The uniqueness of her works manifests itself in the radical process of reduction. Through the mostly black impasto of the sometimes monumental wooden reliefs and assemblages with their strict formal language, the interplay of forms achieves an almost cubist-abstract effect. The wooden collage ‘Sky Gate’ from 1973, a piece typical of Nevelson, offered here at auction, is structured like a puzzle in terms of both format and effect, in which several cut and found pieces of wood are joined together to form a relief. The wooden elements and their monochrome nature emphasise the harmony and tension of light and shadow, form and space, edges and volume. Wood had been a familiar material since her childhood, as her father was a timber merchant and later a lumberjack in the USA. The influence of Cubism, of African sculptures, of the works of both Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, which she first encountered during her stay in Europe, can be clearly seen in her work time and again. Elements of Abstract Expressionism, the prevailing art movement in New York at the time, are also clearly recognisable as an inspiration, however. Although she found her home in sculpture, she also experimented time and again with paper collage and found a freer approach to form and colour, as here in the work ‘Untitled’ from 1974.
Born in 1899 in what is now Ukraine, Nevelson emigrated with her parents to Rockland, Maine, in the USA in 1905. In the early 1930s, she attended art courses at the Art Students League of New York and in 1931, after separating from her husband Charles Nevelson, went to Munich to become a student of Hans Hofmann, one of the founders of the New York School. In 1941, she had her first solo exhibition at the Nierendorf Gallery in New York. In Peggy Guggenheim's groundbreaking ‘Exhibition by 31 Women’ in 1943, Louise Nevelson was shown alongside Frida Kahlo and Dorothea Tanning. Her participation in the legendary exhibition ‘Sixteen Americans’ at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1959 established her breakthrough in the USA. She received international recognition at the Venice Biennale in 1962 and at the documenta in Kassel in 1964 and 1968. The Whitney Museum, New York, dedicated a retrospective to her on her 80th birthday and today her work is included in over 90 public collections worldwide.
The uniqueness of her works manifests itself in the radical process of reduction. Through the mostly black impasto of the sometimes monumental wooden reliefs and assemblages with their strict formal language, the interplay of forms achieves an almost cubist-abstract effect. The wooden collage ‘Sky Gate’ from 1973, a piece typical of Nevelson, offered here at auction, is structured like a puzzle in terms of both format and effect, in which several cut and found pieces of wood are joined together to form a relief. The wooden elements and their monochrome nature emphasise the harmony and tension of light and shadow, form and space, edges and volume. Wood had been a familiar material since her childhood, as her father was a timber merchant and later a lumberjack in the USA. The influence of Cubism, of African sculptures, of the works of both Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, which she first encountered during her stay in Europe, can be clearly seen in her work time and again. Elements of Abstract Expressionism, the prevailing art movement in New York at the time, are also clearly recognisable as an inspiration, however. Although she found her home in sculpture, she also experimented time and again with paper collage and found a freer approach to form and colour, as here in the work ‘Untitled’ from 1974.
Born in 1899 in what is now Ukraine, Nevelson emigrated with her parents to Rockland, Maine, in the USA in 1905. In the early 1930s, she attended art courses at the Art Students League of New York and in 1931, after separating from her husband Charles Nevelson, went to Munich to become a student of Hans Hofmann, one of the founders of the New York School. In 1941, she had her first solo exhibition at the Nierendorf Gallery in New York. In Peggy Guggenheim's groundbreaking ‘Exhibition by 31 Women’ in 1943, Louise Nevelson was shown alongside Frida Kahlo and Dorothea Tanning. Her participation in the legendary exhibition ‘Sixteen Americans’ at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1959 established her breakthrough in the USA. She received international recognition at the Venice Biennale in 1962 and at the documenta in Kassel in 1964 and 1968. The Whitney Museum, New York, dedicated a retrospective to her on her 80th birthday and today her work is included in over 90 public collections worldwide.
CHF 20 000 / 30 000 | (€ 20 620 / 30 930)
Sold for CHF 25 000 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.