Neith Nevelson - Background

Background

Nevelson's grandmother was the 20th century sculptor Louise Nevelson, her father, Mike Nevelson, was a sculptor and her mother, Susan Nevelson, is an artist and textile designer.

Nevelson grew up in Florence, Italy, and began painting at the age of two. She spent her childhood in Florence and New York City, and as a teenager moved to New York, to live at her grandmother's studio.

She has lived in Coconut Grove in Southern Florida, since 1977.

Nevelson studied briefly at the Accademia di Belle Arti, in Florence, Italy. As a student she concentrated on subjects she eventually became known for rather than the standard curriculum of still life drawings and landscapes, and was eventually expelled. Her first exhibition was in 1974 at the Galleria Nuova in Florence. Her last was in 1994; the catalog and exhibition were entitled, "Neith Nevelson: In the Middle of the Night", by Wendy Blazier. She was influenced by Cubism, Surrealism, and Expressionism. Some art-critics have labeled Nevelson as “Outsider” artist.

Nevelson's early work, which she has continued to experiment and embellish on to the present day, take the form of line drawings. Her style developed into complex paintings based on the gestural fluidity of drawing, underscored by her larger art-works which tend to combine elements of all her three major themes. As described in "Neith Nevelson: In the Middle of the Night," Neith's paintings are visions from her imagination, and explore the figurative, symbolic and narrative. As described by the Miami Herald's lackluster review of the same 1994 exhibition, the form of her art reflects the conflicts and contradictions of her life, living in the world of her famous grandmother and the New York art world of the 1960s, hardship and isolation from family, and remembering and longing for childhood.

She is the illustrator a forthcoming book of poems tentatively titled, "Day's Night" by Jorge Reyes.

Outside of her artistic endeavors, Nevelson is notable for political involvement in the area of abortion advocacy, for which she was jailed in Florence Italy in 1977 along with a group of advocates from the Radical Party, a left wing activist group still active in Europe.

In 2009, Neith's life was the basis of a TV show special called "Caso Cerrado" with Ana María Polo, a hugely popular TV show broadcast daily in the US by the Telemundo Network.