Northern Shores II
Artist
Louise Nevelson
(American, born Ukraine, 1899 - 1988)
Date1966
MediumPaint on wood
DimensionsOverall: 53 1/2 × 36 inches (135.89 × 91.44 cm)
Credit LineGift of the American Art Foundation
Object numberF96-23/2
On View
Not on viewCollections
DescriptionBlack, wooden, planar framed rectangle upon which three circular forms and one triangular form have been appended. In relief upon these four, regular geometric forms are appended a series of smaller, irregular, jigsawed and off-cut elements.Gallery LabelAbstract in form, Northern Shores II refers through its title to nature. Nevelson explains: "My total conscious search in life has been for a new seeing, a new image, a new insight. This search not only includes the object, but the in-between places, the dawns and the dusks, the objective world, the heavenly sphere, the places between the land and the sea….Whatever creation man invents, the image can be found in nature. We cannot see anything of which we are not already aware. The inner, the outer equal one."
Nevelson painted her assemblages a single color in order to unify their compositions. "Black is harmony. Black means totality," she wrote.
Copyright© Estate of Louise Nevelson / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
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