American sculptor, draughtswoman and commercial designer of Ukrainian birth. She grew up in Rockland but, in 1920, moved to New York where she studied theatre, piano, dance, singing and painting. Between 1928 and 1930, she studied at the Art Students League and, in 1931, travelled to Munich to study at the Hofmann Schule für Moderne Kunst, later being forced to leave for political reasons. Through Hans Hofmann, Nevelson came into contact with Cubist ideas and collage techniques, which definitively affected her artistic development. Cubism, Surrealism, African, American and Pre-Columbian art are other influences presents in her work of the 30s. During the 60s, she gained a strong reputation with her more geometrical and systematic sculptures produced in more resistant materials and which led to her being invited to produce her first public sculpture, for Princeton University in New Jersey. One of her most important creations was the Louise Nevelson Plaza (1979), a group of seven exterior sculptures placed in the financial sector of New York. In 1983, she received the Gold Metal for Sculpture awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Letters; in 1985, the National Medal of the Arts and, in 1986, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum's Great Artist Series Award.
