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Lot Essay
Louise Nevelson flourished in the 1950s, as her sculpture achieved new levels of personal expression and prolificacy. Moon Garden, 1957, epitomizes her use of artistic creation to develop a new world, a constructed environment separate from the difficulties of her reality. Within her art, she found control that was lacking in her life experiences, and she shaped her materials into her true desires. A natural yet mythological quality emanates from the malleable wood, a totemic landscape that is inviting to both the artist and her audience.
The black wood assemblage of Moon Garden reveals a new frontier in Nevelson's individuality and personal style. This standing column of found wood presents a topographic surface excellently described by its title, Moon Garden. The ambiguous forms evoke ideas of a moon landscape covered in craters or even the dirt of a garden full of holes prepared for plant-life. There is a vitality in this unknown world that invites the audience to think amidst the shadows, light, and reflections. Nevelson carves into the wood in a way that reveals the depths of the material as well as the depths of her emotions, showering the sculpture with her personality and passion. Her words are reflected in the solids and voids of Moon Garden when she says, "The nature of creation is that you have to go inside and dig out. The very nature of creation is not a performing glory on the outside, it's a painful, difficult search within" (Louise Nevelson quoted in B.K. Rapaport, The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson: Constructing a Legend, exh. cat., New York, 2007, p. 36).
The black wood assemblage of Moon Garden reveals a new frontier in Nevelson's individuality and personal style. This standing column of found wood presents a topographic surface excellently described by its title, Moon Garden. The ambiguous forms evoke ideas of a moon landscape covered in craters or even the dirt of a garden full of holes prepared for plant-life. There is a vitality in this unknown world that invites the audience to think amidst the shadows, light, and reflections. Nevelson carves into the wood in a way that reveals the depths of the material as well as the depths of her emotions, showering the sculpture with her personality and passion. Her words are reflected in the solids and voids of Moon Garden when she says, "The nature of creation is that you have to go inside and dig out. The very nature of creation is not a performing glory on the outside, it's a painful, difficult search within" (Louise Nevelson quoted in B.K. Rapaport, The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson: Constructing a Legend, exh. cat., New York, 2007, p. 36).