Sky Cathedral
Object Details
- Gallery Label
- Can you identify any of the everyday objects in the black field of Sky Cathedral?
- Louise Nevelson was an avid collector of objects, and she assembled various found wooden scraps--table legs, bannisters, rolling pins, milk crates, moldings, and other architectural fragments--to create her sculptures.
- Although it's possible to see the shapes and outlines of these elements, they are absorbed into the large, uniformly painted black wall. Nevelson aimed to create a spiritual experience out of everyday objects, transforming them from the material to the immaterial. Sky Cathedral evokes what Nevelson called "the heavenly spheres, the places between the land and the sea" that lie beyond our experience of ordinary things.
- Credit Line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of an anonymous donor
- Data Source
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Date
- 1982
- Object number
- 1994.85A-AA
- Artist
- Louise Nevelson, born Kiev, Russia (now Kyiv, Ukraine) 1899-died New York City 1988
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Type
- Sculpture-Relief
- Medium
- painted wood
- Dimensions
- overall: 104 3/8 x 288 3/8 x 15 3/4 in. (265.1 x 732.5 x 40.0 cm)
- See more items in
- Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture
- On View
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, 3rd Floor, East Wing
- Topic
- Abstract
- Record ID
- saam_1994.85A-AA
