Known today as the grand dame of contemporary sculpture, Nevelson was raised in an immigrant Jewish household in Rockland, Maine, where her father and brother both worked as woodcutters. In the 1940s she gravitated toward building wood sculptures, perhaps influenced by the family lumber business. Her large-scale assemblages, composed of discarded wood and household objects and coated in monochromatic paint, transformed the detritus she found on New York City streets into abstract monuments to the sublime. “When I fell in love with black,” Nevelson explained, “it was an acceptance. Because black encompasses all colors. Black is the most aristocratic color of all. You can be quiet and it contains the whole thing.”