Louise Nevelson

by Lindy S.

Louise Nevelson was a Jewish sculptor who had been born in Kiev, Russia on September 23, 1899. When her father left for America, she was so devastated that she did not talk for six whole months. When she was a child, she had started creating sculptures from the leftover timbers from her father’s work. As a child she also decided she was going to be a sculpture artist. She and her family soon moved to America with the money sent by her father. They lived in Rockland, Maine. They were one of very few Jewish families in the area. Her father soon became a very successful builder, realtor, lumberyard owner, so they moved into a beautiful house, and had soon liked new life in America. She was married after high school, but she and her husband split up after a couple of years. She was in Munich, Germany for six months until the Nazis closed her art school. Her only son, Myron, later became a famous sculptor. Louise had a public trademark of a showy style of clothes, and by fake eyelashes she used to wear. Once she had begun to sell many more of her sculptures, she was going to donate a sculpture to a museum in Paris, until the French government let out a terrorist. This reminded her of the Holocaust, so she did not end up donating her sculpture. The sculpture had been a memorial to the Jews that were killed during the Holocaust. There is a memorial garden that was made for her in New York. That was where she ended up living, and where she died on April 17, 1988.