Night Sail

Night Sail is an aluminum and steel collage of different elements that include nautical forms assembled on a common frame. The frame is coated with black matte paint that the artist, Louise Nevelson, once described as an “aristocratic” color and that she used repeatedly throughout her career. The title Night Sail alludes to the expansiveness of the open sea, a setting Nevelson was reminded of during a site visit to the then-undeveloped Bunker Hill neighborhood of Downtown L.A., with its dark, open, untouched vistas that resembled a black abyss. Weighing 33 tons and situated in the outdoor plaza of Wells Fargo Center, Night Sail is emblematic of the literal and figurative growth of DTLA, as well as the expansive embrace of the arts for which the area is recognized.

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Louise Nevelson (1899–1988) and her family emigrated in the early 1900s from Kiev, Russia, to the United States, where they settled in Rockland, Maine. Married at a young age to Charles Nevelson, she moved to New York with her husband and enrolled at the Art Students League. In the 1930s, Nevelson assisted Diego Rivera on a mural for the Rockefeller Center. She is most recognized for her abstract expressionist artworks and sculpted wooden assemblages composed of found objects grouped together and painted in monochromatic colors. Her work can be found in major museums—including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis—as well as in esteemed private collections worldwide.