The iconic sculptures of Louise Nevelson

Louise Nevelson's artwork looks right at home at the Whitney Museum of American Art, mingling with the skyscrapers of Manhattan. She found inspiration in the city as early as the 1920s, yet it would take the art world decades to recognize her and her iconic sculptures.

"She was given her first respective at the Whitney in 1967," said Maria Nevelson, the artist's granddaughter, who runs the Louise Nevelson Foundation. "I was seven years old. And there was a line of people all the way around the block, up to the front door. I really did get chills. It was the first time I responded to artwork in general, and to my grandmother's artwork."

Nearly six decades later, the Whitney is holding a new Nevelson exhibition, which is open until August 10.

Asked what Louise was like as a grandmother, Maria laughed: "Oh, she was intimidating and unconventional. What comes to mind first is her atmospheric dressing. Anything could have been pulled into this assemblage and this layering of rich brocades and silks."

That fancy wardrobe didn't stop Nevelson from getting her hands dirty: "She'd dumpster dive, she'd get into the garbage can, she'd pull out filthy pieces of wood, and we'd have to take 'em home," said Maria. "I would say the streets of New York weren't paved with gold for her; it was paved with garbage. And she loved it!"

Nevelson's attraction to wood may have grown from her family tree – her family owned lumber yards in present-day Ukraine, where she was born in 1899. Louise was a young girl who spoke no English when her father decided to move the family to Rockland, Maine.

"It was a bustling seaport town," said Maria. "They got off the train and, she said, rednecks threw mud at them. And she said, 'I knew I was a Jew, I knew I was different.' She was about five, six years old then. That's her greeting to America."

Undaunted, Nevelson learned English, and at age nine, announced she was going to be a sculptor.

"She knew always what she wanted to be and do, and she pursued it fiercely," said Brooke Minto, executive director and CEO of the Columbus Museum of Art, where Nevelson's work is also currently on display. "It was a decade's long journey, and she just kept at it."

Nevelson would choose a monochromatic palette to unify her materials. Minto said, "She really understood that she could create an all-over, immersive experience in her sculpture by pairing them down to a single color. It's this wonderful accumulation of very simple and humble objects into something that's quite monumental and immediately historical."

According to Maria Nevelson, Louise did her best work when she was in her 70s and 80s, "right up to when she passed away at 88."

In 1979, Charles Osgood, of "Sunday Morning," spoke to Louise when she was 79 years old and, arguably, at the height of her career. The artist remarked, "You see, dear, if you are doing your creative work, you don't have age or time as such, and consequently you're not caught in it. So, you go on."

• From 1979: Sculptor Louise Nevelson (Video)

Maria said, "My grandmother's legacy is to leave her message, which is to get out there, drop the limitations, follow your passions, teach yourself what you need to know … and do it. Why not?"

For more info:

Story produced by Lucie Kirk. Editor: Lauren Barnello.

See also: