Twelve abstract oil-and-sand paintings by Nina Nielsen are now on view through March 28 at Storefront Art Projects in Watertown. Nielsen, although no newcomer to abstract art, only seriously began to make art as she neared the age of 70.
For four decades, New England artists, art students and art lovers cut their teeth on contemporary abstract art at the Nielsen Gallery, a three-story brownstone at 179 Newbury Street. Nielsen has shown the likes of painters Joan Snyder, John Walker, Jon Imber, Jake Berthot and Porfirio DiDonna, along with sculptors Christopher Wilmarth, Dexter Lazenby and Nathalie Miebach.
In 1972, the founder of the Nielsen Gallery had returned from maternity leave, “tired of looking up auction prices of modernist prints.” Henceforth, she would sell abstract and contemporary art and feature the work of Boston artists. Until then, few had dared to challenge the Boston Brahmins’ stalwart resistance to entertaining modernist and post-war sensibilities in art. Nielsen dared. Her nerve, verve and discernment influenced many in the next decade, Boston collectors and museums slowly acknowledged the inevitable. The avant-garde was real.