Louise Nevelson

American (b. Russia, 1900–1988)
Dawn’s Presence, 1959
Painted wood
Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.     77.1241
© 2010 Estate of Louise Nevelson / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

When you put together things that other people have thrown out, you’re really bringing them to life, a spiritual life that surpasses the life for which they were originally created.

Louise Nevelson originally created this work as part of a room-size installation of more than 100 white, column-like sculptures.  Entitled Dawn’s Wedding Feast (see illustration), her assemblage of abstract wooden figures was unveiled in a groundbreaking 1959 exhibition of contemporary American art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.  The Chrysler’s two columns represent participants in that elaborate wedding ceremony.

Among the most innovative sculptors working in New York after World War II, Nevelson was a “spiritual forager” who built her wall-and floor-mounted works from scrap wood—discarded newel posts, banister rails, and other street castoffs.  She typically assembled these objects in tight, geometric arrangements reminiscent of Cubist figures and still lifes, then finished them in glowing gold, black, or white paint that lent them a mysterious aura.