Louise Nevelson, Untitled, 1928

Narrator: Nevelson moved to New York in 1920, and began studying at the Art Students League soon after. Clémence White describes the context in which the artist made her early drawings.  

Clémence White: She was taking formal art classes at the Art Students League and, teaching art herself, employed by the Works Progress Administration, and was part of a broader community of artists.

These works are really important to understand Nevelson's practice because her mastery of drawing would prove essential to how she built composition in her later works on view in this exhibition and in her sculptures.

Narrator: Nevelson would later move on to explore volume and form with geometric sculptural shapes, but these early works show her portraying depth through using the human body instead.

Clémence White: She is working in these drawings depicting mostly figurative imagery and, using the line to different effect, was interested in the way that a single line could contain and create many forms.