The World Outside: Louise Nevelson at Midcentury

One of the first exhibitions to explore Louise Nevelson’s sculptures and works on paper in dialogue with their historical moment, The World Outside: Louise Nevelson at Midcentury illuminates the artist’s multidimensional command of form and attunement to postwar culture in the United States. It features more than sixty defining artworks by Nevelson, including wall works, installations, drawings, and prints.

Divided into thematic sections that explore Nevelson’s identity as an artist—delving into her involvement in modern dance, her interest in the environment and community building, and her innovations as a printmaker—The World Outside allows Nevelson’s sculptures and works on paper to be viewed through the lens of the artistic and cultural landscape that shaped her vision, reaffirming her significance as an artist.

The Colby Museum’s presentation will highlight Nevelson’s ties to Maine, where she spent her childhood, and feature works that the artist donated to the museum in 1973, when the Jetté Galleries, where the exhibition will appear, were inaugurated. Among the national and international loans are such iconic works as Lunar Landscape, Royal Tide I, Rain Forest Wall, and Transparent Sculpture I.