Past Exhibitions

Spanning the artist’s career from 1929 to 1985, Louise Nevelson: Dawn to Dusk traces Nevelson’s formative years to her emergence as a sculptor of international renown. Featuring 40 works from the Farnsworth Art Museum collection, the exhibition includes early paintings and figurative sculptures in terracotta, cast stone, and bronze, as well as later painted wood reliefs, collages, and handcrafted jewelry. These selections highlight themes central to her development: her immigrant experience, her resilience in the face of cultural odds, and her pioneering, experimental approach to materials and installation.

Born Leah Berliawsky in 1899 in Tsarist Russia, near Kyiv in Ukraine, Nevelson immigrated to Rockland, Maine, with her family in 1905 to escape the persecution of Jews under the Imperialist regime. Before she died in 1988, Nevelson donated 56 examples of her art to the Farnsworth Art Museum in her hometown, making the Farnsworth collection the second largest holding of her work after the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. Louise Nevelson: Dawn to Dusk addresses themes central to Nevelson’s artistic development: her immigrant experience; her determination to pursue an art career against great personal and cultural odds; her innovative, experimental use of materials; and her pioneering approach to installation and sculpture.