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Sky Cathedral


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Sky Cathedral
United States Sculpture

1957
57 x 149 x 16 in. (144.78 x 378.46 x 40.64 cm)

Louise Nevelson (aka Louise Berliawsky) (Pereyaslav, Ukraine, 1899 – 1988, New York, New York) Primary

Object Type: Sculpture
Creation Place: North America, United States, New York
Medium and Support: Painted wood
Credit Line: Gift of Beverly and Peter Lipman
Accession Number: 2010.16

SJMA Label Text


Louise Nevelson: The Fourth Dimension (2017-2018)

Louise Nevelson began making her signature wall box sculptures in the late 1950s, assembling salvaged wood scraps within wooden crates that she stacked and ordered into rough grids. Positioning her boxes against the wall, Nevelson boldly transcended defined boundaries between painting and sculpture. The large scale of her “Sky Cathedral” sculptures situated her work in dialogue with the paintings of her Abstract Expressionist contemporaries. Moreover, the monumental size of this signature early example evokes the murals of her former teacher Diego Rivera, while its angular cells jut forward into real space like an illusionary Cubist painting.

Held in place only by gravity, each of Sky Cathedral’s twenty-six boxes contains a unique assemblage of found wood—furniture parts, architectural ornaments, and rough-hewn scraps left in the streets during New York’s postwar construction boom. Arranged in cell-like boxes and painted a unifying black, the discarded fragments take on new life and character—a process Nevelson likened to alchemy. In their new arrangement, the cast-off objects resemble an altarpiece and acquire mythological symbolism. Nevelson explained, “each niche lives and encloses its own life…[they] are colonies in which each cell strengthens and supports its neighbors…. Life is both in the parts and in the whole.”


Inside Out: Selections of the Permanent Collection (2004-2006)

Louise Nevelson’s work succeeds in its ability not only to transcend style, but also to walk a fine line between sculpture and painting. It exists in both camps and challenges the division between the two. Typical of her work, Sky Cathedral #2 is constructed of “crates” piled with a variety of molded and found wood and stacked into a wall-like configuration. It predates a famous example in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and was originally made for her brother's Thorndike Hotel in Rockland, Maine.

One of the most original artists in twentieth century American art, Louise Nevelson emerged as a major figure in the 1950s with her constructions made of newel posts, balusters, finials, moldings, and other found scraps of wood. Her constructions may be compared to living, cellular organisms. According to the artist, "Each niche lives and encloses its own life…[they] are colonies in which each cell strengthens and supports its neighbors. Life is both in the parts and the whole."

Exhibition

Evergreen: Art from the Collection, July 23, 2022 – ongoing, Historic Wing. Davies Gallery, San José Museum of Art.


Louise Nevelson: The Fourth Dimension, September 5, 2017 - March 18, 2018, Second Floor North Gallery, San José Museum of Art.

The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson, October 27, 2007 - January 13, 2008, de Young Museum, Fine Arts Museum San Francisco.

Inside Out: Selections from the Permanent Collection, November 20, 2004 - July 9, 2006, New Wing, Second Floor, South Metro A and Central Skylight Galleries, San José Museum of Art.

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Dimensions
  • Sculpture Dimensions: 57 x 149 x 16 in. (144.78 x 378.46 x 40.64 cm)

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