• The Columbus Museum of Art is featuring two exhibitions, “Louise Nevelson: Dawn to Dusk” and “Wild Earth: JB Blunk and Toshiko Takaezu,” both of which showcase art with animal themes.
• “Louise Nevelson: Dawn to Dusk” explores the artist’s background and range, featuring sculptures, paintings and lithographs, including a cat totem.

Currently on view at the Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) are sculptures and paintings in “Louise Nevelson: Dawn to Dusk,” adjacent to the exhibition “Wild Earth: JB Blunk and Toshiko Takaezu,” featuring large- and small-scale ceramics.

In case you are wondering how these exhibitions might be related, each features a work with a cat. Let’s begin by discussing the works of Louise Nevelson.

Those who have been longtime patrons of CMA may recall the Nevelson sculpture “Sky Cathedral: Night Wall (1963-76),” prominently located in the upper wing. I passed by that sculpture every weekday for five years when I worked in the curatorial department of CMA, awed by the sheer size and complexity of “Sky Cathedral: Night Wall,” an imposing masterwork of found objects and assembled materials painted black.

The current exhibition, “Louise Nevelson: Dawn to Dusk,” on view through Aug. 24, reveals Nevelson’s background as it informed her career as an artist.

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Born in Ukraine in 1899, Nevelson immigrated with her family to Rockland, Maine, when she was 5 years old. Her father managed a junkyard, which may have got young Nevelson thinking about how seemingly disparate objects could form a unified whole, a theme in much of her monochromatic work.

After getting married, she moved with her husband to New York City and began studying at the Art Students League and went on to study art in Europe after they separated in 1931.

The harsh political climate and impending war forced Nevelson to return to the United States. During the remaining decade, she created art for the Works Progress Administration and taught at the Educational Alliance Art School.

Her first one-woman show was held at the Nierendorf gallery in New York in 1941. It was after this exhibition that Nevelson began working with assemblages, influenced by abstract expressionism.

Nevelson’s acclaim as an artist took off in the late 1950s, and she transitioned into using industrial materials for sculptures which could be displayed outdoors.

Nevelson had a connection to Columbus through showing her work at the Pace/Columbus gallery, “a satellite of the New York-based Pace Gallery run by Eva Glimcher, from 1965 to 1982.”

“Louise Nevelson: Dawn to Dusk,” organized by the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, showcases the range of her artistic ability as a sculptor, painter (including a cat totem) and lithographer.

Two of the most eye-catching works in the show are an assemblage painted entirely in gold, and a lithograph with a pop of red among black-and-white shapes. A range of Nevelson items, including books on her life and career, are available for purchase in the gift shop.

“Wild Earth: JB Blunk and Toshiko Takaezu,” on view through Aug. 3, is the first exhibition bringing together the works of these artists.

James Blain (JB) Blunk (1926-2002) studied ceramics in Japan in the 1950s. After returning to the U.S., Blunk settled off the grid in his California home/studio, Blunk House. His works are housed in museum collections in California and Hong Kong.

Abstract artist Toshiko Takaezu (1922-2011) was a Hawaiian artist of Japanese descent seeking to learn more about her heritage through art.

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She studied at the Honolulu Museum of Art School and the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. She went on to teach at the Cleveland Institute of Art and Princeton University.

The works in “Wild Earth: JB Blunk and Toshiko Takaezu” range from large-scale assembled wood objects to large-scale cylindrical ceramic pieces in the style of the postwar studio craft movement, and sketches (one including a cat) to small bowls and jewelry.

The works are predominantly created from natural materials, wood and clay, and they’re inspired by nature. Of the approximately 200 works on view in the exhibition, 20 are owned by CMA and were received as gifts from Takaezu.

A connection is made between Nevelson, Blunk and Takaezu through their artistic use of wood.

Amy Drake, M.A., M.S. MCM, is a Telly Award-winning filmmaker, playwright and actor. She can be reached at [email protected].