A Jewish immigrant to America from Kyiv, Ukraine, Louise Nevelson rose to fame in the 1960s for her wall sculptures composed of wood reliefs in open boxes stacked together. In these, she created a fantasy world of awe and mystery. Painted in black or white, and later gold, to unify her rigorous cubistic compositions, these structures created a complex interplay of three-dimensional forms, shadows, and textures. After coming to New York City from Maine where her family had settled, Nevelson studied sculpture with Chaim Gross at the Education Alliance Art School on the Lower East Side. In 1965 she crated a monumental wall relief, Homage to Six Million, her only work with a Jewish subject.