Louise Nevelson Collage/ Assemblage

 

 In this lesson Students Learned about the artist Louise Nevelson and created a collage/assemblage piece in her style.

About the Artist:
Louise Berliawsky was born in Kiev, Russia.  (1899-1988)
She immigrated in 1905 to Rockland, Maine, where her father established a lumberyard.  Often she used wood scraps from her fathers yard to make collages.  In 1920, Louise married Charles Nevelson and moved to NYC. They had one son Myron. Then in 1931 Louise separated from her husband because she believed her role as mother and wife restricted her artistic potential.

After separating from her husband Nevelson traveled and continued studying art.  She was inspired by African sculptures.  Their use of eclectic materials-cowrie shells, raffia, wood-inspired Nevelson's use of found objects in her sculptures.

Nevelson discovered the assemblage format for which she is best known.  She collected found items- crates, balusters, bedposts, moldings, shelving- to incorporate into her sculptures. Nevelson reshaped the fragments with files, hammers, and scissors, or soaked wood pieces in water to make the pliable.  Elements were assembled in box-like units, combined to worm an entire sculpture.  These sculptures were unified by the application of a single color- white, gold, black.

"Louise herself liked that say that Picasso has resolved the cube, Mondrian had flattened it, and she had endowed it with poetry." -Biographer Laurie Lisle

Materials:
*Square piece of Cardboard (for background)
*Cut Cardboard shapes
*Various Items- Milk Caps, Buttons, Pasta, cut toilet paper tubes,
*Glue
*Black, Gray, White Paint (Tempera)
*Sand
*Sponge Brushes



Intro:
(1) Introduce the artist and show her artwork- The piece we used is called, Mirror-Shadow VIII
(2) Explain the Project

Procedure:
(1) Glue cut cardboard and other objects on to cardboard background- create an interesting design and layer items.
(2)Choose Black, Gray or White paint (I pre-mixed the paint with a little sand to help it stick)
(3) Paint over the whole piece with chosen color.
(4) Let dry and display!

*The kids had alot of fun gluing the objects on and painting them!  I did this all at once and they painted as they went- but if I had time I would have had them let the glue dry and then paint it.