Louise NevelsonOrigins of Sky Cathedral

San José Museum of Art curatorial associate Marja van der Loo talking with collector Peter Lipman about Louise Nevelson’s Sky Cathedral (1957) at Lipman’s home in 2017. Video by Marja van der Loo.

Louise Nevelson made her monumental Sky Cathedral (1957)—now in the San José Museum of Art’s collection—for her brother, who owned the Thorndike Hotel in Rockland, Maine. One of the artist’s first monochromatic sculptures made of the stacked wooden crates that would become part of her signature style, Sky Cathedral hung for ten years in the Thorndike’s lobby. American art collectors Jean and Howard Lipman acquired the piece directly from Nevelson’s brother in 1967, and their son Peter Lipman and his wife Beverly donated the work to the San José Museum of Art in 2010.