Louise Nevelson: I Must Recompose the Environment

Documenting Louise Nevelson’s first museum retrospective

In 1967, for her first museum retrospective, Louise Nevelson (1899-1988) was given carte blanche to transform the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University into an all-emcompassing, theatrical environment for her sculpture. Nevelson installed her show across the whole museum, draping the walls of the permanent collection with the colors that reflected the black, white, gold and navy palette of her works. Louise Nevelson: I Must Recompose the Environment includes previously unpublished exhibition layouts (annotated by Nevelson), installation photographs and texts that place this show in the context of Nevelson’s career and the museum’s early history. This publication accompanies the now out-of-print catalog of the 1967 show organized in collaboration with the Whitney Museum and serves as a document both of the then-nascent museum and the solidifying legacy of an artistic icon.