Louise Nevelson: A Pioneer of American Sculpture Born: Pereslav, Russia (1899) Died: 1988 Early Life and Influences Louise Nevelson, born Leah Berliawsky in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine), emigrated to the United States with her family in 1905. They settled in Rockland, Maine. Her father’s lumber business exposed her to wood, a material that would become central to her artistic practice. Early exposure to art came through a plaster cast of Joan of Arc at the Rockland Public Library, sparking her ambition to become an artist. She attended…