LOUISE NEVELSON
Night Garden.

Aquatint and etching on cream wove paper, circa 1955. 373x452 mm; 14x17¾ inches, full margins. Artist's proof, aside from the edition of approximately only 20. Signed and titled "Ancient Garden" in pencil, lower margin. A superb, richly-inked impression of this extremely scarce etching.Ex-collection Albert Argentieri, New Jersey, friend of the artist; thence by descent, private collection, New Jersey. During the 1950s and 1960s, Argentieri, a photographer and artist, lived near Louise Nevelson and her assistant, Ted Haseltine, his dear friend. Albert photographed Louise, her artworks and sculptures; both Albert and Ted, when staying in New Jersey would collect wooden pieces from abandoned buildings and other locations for Nevelson to use in her sculptures. The early etchings and drawings she gifted to Argentieri are unique (see lots 28-37).According to Baro, "This etching was one of Nevelson's favorites. Forms are less a matter of continuous modulations of tone rationalized by line than in other work of this time. The pictorial activity is more completely on the surface and is not veiled by a linear network of energies. The shapes themselves are in literal and tonal interaction though, to be sure, there is some drawing. Nevertheless, this etching is important as reflecting the breaking up of sculptural form." Baro 18.