Louise Nevelson: From Ukrainian Emigrant to American Sculpture Icon

Louise Nevelson, born Leah Berliawsky in Pereiaslav (now Ukraine) in 1899, emigrated to the United States in 1905 with her parents Isaac and Minna Berliawsky, settling in Rockland, Maine. At 19 she met Charles Nevelson, a Jewish cargo ship owner; they married two years later and moved to New York City. Charles opposed her artistic ambitions, leading to depression; her mother helped her leave him in 1931, promising to care for their son Myron. Nevelson then pursued art seriously, traveling to Europe to study sculpture. Back in New York, she assisted Diego Rivera on his Rockefeller Plaza mural Man at the Crossroads and had an affair with him, causing tension with Frida Kahlo, whom she admired. Her monumental installations of arranged wooden debris, spray-painted monochromatically, echoed Marcel Duchamp's readymades. Despite a misogynistic art world dominated by Abstract Expressionism, she persisted, buoyed by a prophecy from Sholem Aleichem that she was 'destined for greatness.' In the 1930s and 1940s, known as 'The Hat' for her extravagant headwear, she used fashion as a coping mechanism, like her mother. Recognition came in 1962 with a solo show at Martha Jackson Gallery and participation in the Venice Biennale; in 1969 Princeton University commissioned a monumental outdoor steel sculpture. More commissions and acclaim followed, cementing her legacy as one of America's most innovative sculptors. She died in 1988.