Louise Nevelson valuation

Louise Nevelson (1899–1988) was born Leah Berliawsky in Pereiaslav, then in the Russian Empire and now in Ukraine, and in 1905 her family moved to Rockland, Maine. She studied at the Art Students League of New York from 1929 and with Hans Hofmann in Munich in 1931, and in 1933 she assisted Diego Rivera on his mural Man at the Crossroads. Her best-known works are sculptural walls built from found wood and stacked wooden crates, spray-painted black or white and, later, gold, as in the Sky Cathedral series and Dawn's Wedding Feast. She was included in Sixteen Americans at the Museum of Modern Art in 1960, represented the United States at the Venice Biennale in 1962 and had a retrospective at the Whitney Museum in 1967. Her first prints were etchings of 1953 to 1955; in 1963 she completed 26 editions of lithographs at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles, and returned in 1967 for the large Double Imagery series. Pace Gallery showed her from 1963, and in 1978 a square in Lower Manhattan was named Louise Nevelson Plaza.

Nevelson made unique wood assemblages and wall sculptures, collages and drawings, and many prints and multiples, from lithographs and etchings to cast paper reliefs, many published by Pace Prints from the early 1970s. For a print, check the edition number, signature, workshop or publisher and the paper. The Louise Nevelson Foundation gathers information for a catalogue raisonné and invites owners to submit works, though it does not authenticate them. Painted wood can chip or split, so note any repainting.