Provenance:
Baldwin Gallery, Aspen
Acquired from the above in 1997

Lot Essay:
“When I fell in love with black, it contained all color. It wasn’t a negation of color. It was an acceptance. Because black encompasses all colors. Black is the most aristocratic color of all…” -Louise Nevelson quoted in Arthur C. Danto, “Black, White, and Gold: Monochrome and Meaning in the Art of Louise Nevelson,” in The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson: Constructing a Legend (New York: Jewish Museum, 2007). 

This conscious commitment to the royal identification of fully unified color lends itself to a binary interpretation with the regal completeness of black being partnered in balance by the equally majestic all encompassing white, a monochrome scheme also favored by Nevelson in her constructions. Demonstrating that theoretically Mic Jagger could have yearned to paint the red door white to matching metaphorical impact. Black and white in polarized harmony the vacillating hallmark shades of Nevelson’s painted wood works, decisively occupying both the realms of expression that are painting and sculpture. Most exemplified in her wall reliefs, often square in format with symbolic token objective components, organized strategically within the exterior framing field, alluding to maps, mazes, alternating current circuit or stately game boards. On, off, open, shut, in, out, light, dark, day, night, good, evil, competing energized entities in finite opposition keeps a tension in the work always attractively at play. A departure from this signature spectrum system, Series of an Unknown Cosmos III, 1979, opaquely sensitive in shifting saturation, the whimsical princely contrast of the lyrically colorful Chinese Checker marble’s movement, to the rigid resolute king and queen of chess piece stasis. Subtle naturalistic hues, in breezy breaths of orange, red and hazy gray dance across the picture plane, active starbursts, atmospheric phenomena or celestial displays, the sequences of a painterly game. Not so much an outlier, but rather a supportive accompaniment to the at times daunting completeness of the black or white works utter resolution, the judicious splashes of tone in Series of an Unknown Cosmos III satisfy that same compositional concern with an abstract exploration of the mysterious universe of possibilities. We see here the sparing use of some shade resulting in the same compelling conclusion as the dynamic use of the prisms sum total more familar.