Collection View: Louise Nevelson

Nevelson composed the Moving-Static-Moving Figures using stacked terra-cotta or cast stone elements, some of which can be turned along central steel or brass dowels and swapped from one sculpture to the next to create shifting configurations. For her terra-cotta works, she used a sharp tool to incise linear patterns and faces into the wet clay, transforming the abstract blocky forms into figures. These sculptures exemplify Nevelson’s abiding interest in states of passage—in this case between sculpture and drawing, abstraction and figuration, motion and stillness—and foreshadow her signature wooden-box assemblages, which also feature movable stacked parts.