ABOUT THE PROJECT
LOGLINE
Against all odds, Russian-Jewish immigrant Louise Nevelson transforms herself from a cultural outsider in a man’s world into one of the most famous American artists of all time.
SYNOPSIS
Set in the midst of New York City’s transformation into the center of the Western art world, this film tells the story of how Louise Berliawsky—a Russian Jewish immigrant raised in Rockland, Maine—becomes Louise Nevelson, one of the most famous American artists of her day.
Louise believes from a young age that her destiny is to be a great artist, but in the early 1900s the realities of life for a woman are not in sync with her dreams. Marriage is followed by motherhood, and Nevelson suffers greatly under the confines of domestic life. Paying what she called “the great price,” she leaves her son to pursue a life in art. The sexism she faces is blatant and shocking, and her work is often dismissed by critics simply because she is a woman.
Braving rejection, poverty, and discrimination for the first twenty-five years of her career, Nevelson develops a unique vis-ual language with her enormous wall assemblages made entirely from scavenged wood. She ultimately succeeds on her own terms—but not until she is in her mid-fifties.
In 1962 Nevelson emerges from the male-dominated field of sculpture to represent the United States in the Venice Biennale, and by the 1970s she has become a grand dame of the art world and a hero of the Women’s Liberation movement. Known as much for her otherworldly black sculptural environments as for her inimitable personal style—impossibly long false eyelashes, chinchilla furs, and lavishly embroidered kaftans—Nevelson is featured in Vogue magazine and interviewed on TV.
Her work is collected by hundreds of museums, and her public sculptures are commissioned by cities all over the world. Yet after her death in 1988, Nevelson is nearly forgotten, proof that a life in art is ephemeral—especially for a woman.
PROJECT TYPE Documentary Feature
DIRECTOR Jennifer Lane
PRODUCER Jennifer Lane, David Hollander
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER David Koh
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