Sculpture: Mansions of Mystery

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Crowds of New Yorkers surging past the Whitney Museum's Andrew Wyeth show (TIME, Feb. 24), which has already drawn 170,000 visitors, found themselves in for a delightful surprise when they reached the topmost gallery. There an almost cathedral hush was induced by a full-scale retrospective display of the work of Sculptor Louise Nevelson. Awed spectators moved from darkened room to darkened room, observing Nevelson's monumental spotlighted pillars and walls built of orange crates, dowels, spindles and other bits of wooden bric-a-brac but sprayed either all black, all white or all gold. America—Dawn, a multi-totemed white creation, looms like a silent convocation of sentinels. Tropical Rain Forest hangs from the walls and ceiling of an entirely blackened corridor, inviting the visitor to stroll through the secret splendor.

At 66, Louise Nevelson has at last arrived in the art world. Eighteen museums now own her sculptures. In the decade since collectors first began to be entranced with her mysterious box-sculptures, the price of her work has escalated. Smaller pieces, which sold for $1,000 each five to ten years ago, now go for up to $6,000, and several museums have paid more than $45,000 for her huge wall sculptures. Nevelson herself, a big-hatted, cigar-smoking metaphysic on the order of Edith Sitwell or Isak Dinesen, is pleased but not entirely surprised by her acclaim. After all, she explains, "acceptance of art has something to do with a developing visual intelligence and sense of scale. People are used to my things now because of large buildings, large cities, etc."

Nor is she planning to rest on her laurels. In the future, she plans to build an entire room in her colossal style, and perhaps eventually—who knows?—a whole mansion. "Now that I'm economically free—my God! There's nothing I can't use," she exclaims. "Plastic, Plexiglas, metal—you'd think I've lived all this time just for these new materials." She has already built several transparent structures with glass and Plexiglas. "Who wants to live in the past?" she asks. "Man must face up to himself. I like to build my own environment."