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Nevelson, Louise, b. 1899 d. 1988

Sculptor
New York, N.Y., Kiev, Ukraine (Show Bio)

Louise Nevelson papers, circa 1903-1979

16.8 linear ft.
Reel(s): D296 and D269A-D296E, 440, and 1817

The collection documents aspects of the life and work of the sculptor, focusing especially on her later career. Papers include correspondence, personal business records, writings, scrapbooks, early art work, photographs, interviews, awards and honorary degrees, books, and an extensive amount of printed material.

Interviews, awards, and honorary degrees comprise a series of biographical material, along with scattered personal papers such as a graduation program, wedding announcement, teaching certificate, invitations, miscellaneous notes, and material relating to Nevelson's son, Mike. Correspondence consists of letters and enclosures from a wide range of professional contacts, including museums and art centers, universities, art associations, women's and charitable organizations, artists, and philanthropists, among others, concerning the exhibition, sale, and donation of Nevelson's art work, and her various arts-related activities, as well as some letters from friends and family, most extensively from her son, Mike. Correspondence can also be found amongst the subject files, which also include clippings, notes, printed and other material organized according to subject and relating to certain exhibitions, and various artistic and professional activities. Whether this organization originates with Nevelson, one of her assistants, or Archives staff is unknown.

Found amongst Nevelson's business records are consignment receipts, statements, correspondence, inventories, disposition cards, notebooks, and lists, stemming from her business dealings with the Martha Jackson Gallery and related matters, usually carried out by her assistant at the time. Business records relate in particular to the large and complex project of inventorying Nevelson's art work undertaken sometime in the early-1960s. Nevelson's writings consist mostly of poems and poem fragments, as well as a short-lived dream journal and scattered writings on art, and reflect some of her ideas about art in general and her work in particular. Also found are a large number of scrapbooks and an extensive amount of printed material, which likely stem in large part from Nevelson's concern to document and keep a record of her accomplishments. Scrapbooks contain clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, and other material documenting Nevelson's early career from roughly the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s. Also included are loose items comprising a scrapbook of sorts on Mike Nevelson and various scrapbooks compiled by others as mementos of particular events. Printed material includes an extensive amount of clippings and publications, exhibition catalogs and announcements, and a variety of other printed material relating or referring to Nevelson or merely featuring her name in print. Also included are several books, some of which are about or feature segments on Nevelson. This material documents both her critical and commercial success, and her role as personality and minor celebrity in the mass media later in her career, especially during the 1960s and 1970s.

Art work consists of early drawings and watercolors made by Nevelson as a child and adolescent and while studying art in high school and New York, which document her artistic tendencies as youth and her early development as an artist and which provide an interesting contrast to her later work in sculpture. Photographs include ones of the Berliawsky family and Nevelson as a child, adolescent, and young woman in the 1920s and 1930s before she became known as an artist; ones of Nevelson from the mid-1950s to the late-1970s, once she had become known, and began to be honored, as an artist; and ones of Nevelson's art work, as well as of various exibitions and installations of her work. Also included are a number of slides of the artist and her art work, including photographs taken by Dorothy Dehner in the mid-1950s at Louise Nevelson's house on Thirtieth Street.

Donated by Louise Nevelson, 1966-1979.

How to Use this Collection

The bulk of this collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website. Use of material not digitized requires an appointment.
Portions of this collection have been digitized and are available online via AAA's website. Items such as exhibition catalogs that are widely available elsewhere have not been scanned in their entirety. Items that typically have not been digitized include photographs of artwork, slides, clippings, publications, and other printed material. These are available on microfilm reels D296 and D269A-D296E, 440, and 1817 available for use at Archives of American Art offices and through interlibrary loan.
This Collection is available online.
Please read the Finding Aid for more detailed information on this collection.
Selected images of documents in this collection are online.
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Nevelson, Louise, b. 1899 d. 1988

Louise Nevelson papers, circa 1903-1979

How to Use this Collection

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