Gabo's proposal was his first attempt at a fully realized architectural plan, and was a logical extrapolation of the aesthetics and techniques of his earlier, abstract sculptural works. But the outbreak of war forced a change of plans. As a student of engineering and architecture, he emulated and demonstrated cutting-edge techniques from those fields in his sculptural constructions, and designed complex architectural plans himself. In 1913, at Wlflinn's suggestion, Gabo embarked on a six-week walking tour of Italy, viewing Michelangelo's David and other Renaissance and classical masterpieces. [Internet]. Together they visited the Salon des Indpendants, exposing the young Gabo to the work of Picasso, Braque, Kandinsky, Delaunay, Leger, and others, and to the Cubist and Futurist ideas exploding onto the avant-garde scene. All Rights Reserved, Gabo on Gabo: Texts and Interviews Paperback - April, 2002, Constructing Modernity: The Art & Career of Naum Gabo, Naum Gabo: The constructive idea; sculpture, drawings, paintings, monoprint, 'Absolute' Art Discussed Here by Naum Gabo, Naum Gabo and the Quandaries of the Replica, TateShots: Interview with the artist Naum Gabo's daughter, Naum Gabo & Antoine Pevsner - The Realistic Manifesto (Manifesto Extract, 1920), Transcript of interview of Naum Gabo by Gunnar Jespersen, Gabo believed that art should have an explicit and functional value in society. base: 0.3 cm (1/8 in.) Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.236-7, reproduced p.236, Celluloid and plastic, 5 5/8 x 3 3/4 x 3 3/4 (14.4 x 9.4 x 9.4), , Tate Gallery, November 1976-January 1977 (17, repr. Once again, in this late work, Gabo makes new strides in his ongoing quest to find ways of expressing volume independently of mass. This was not a happy period for him, politically or personally. A model for the column 104cm high in plastic, wood and metal which belonged to the Addison Gallery of American Art at Andover, Massachusetts, from 1949 to 1952 (until exchanged for another work), and which is now in the Guggenheim Museum, New York. Created as a prototype for a site-specific, large-scale public sculpture intended to be placed near a Soviet textile factory, Linear Construction was conceived as a tribute to the artists and workers still attempting to construct a socialist society. Gabo's increasing concern, from the late 1930s, with the aesthetic aspect of his work at the expense of the industrial can be seen in Model for 'Construction in Space "Crystal"'. These also suggest some accessible resources for further research, especially ones that can be found and purchased via the internet. "Standing Wave" is a physician's term, used to describe exactly the kind of static-seeming patterns of movement, generated by the passage of energy through certain structures, which the sculpture creates. Artwork page for Spiral Theme, Naum Gabo, 1941 When Spiral Theme was shown in wartime London, it was greeted with popular acclaim. His tour was aborted early due to lack of funds and apparent feelings of loneliness. The Tate Gallery in London, which has the world's largest collection of his early works, is battling their chemical degradation. In fact, the element of movement in Gabos sculpture is connected to a strong rhythm, more implicit and deeper than the chaotic patterns of life itself. As the string nears the central core, it is wound with increasing density, creating a mesmeric gradation of depth. These include Constructie, an 81-foot commemorative monument in front of the Bijenkorf Department Store (1954, unveiled in 1957) in Rotterdam, and Revolving Torsion, a large fountain outside St Thomas Hospital in London. Visit the Frank Lloyd Wrightdesigned Guggenheim Museum in NYC, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Artwork page for Model for Column, Naum Gabo, 19201 Many of Gabo's sculptures first appeared as tiny models. Naum gabo artwork Rating: 4,3/10 1459 reviews. Vassar Miscellany News / Gabo died in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1977. Gabos vision is imaginative and passionate. Hammer, Martin and Naum Gabo, Christina Lodder. He was part of the St Ives group in Cornwall, alongside Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson. A larger version was created for the exhibition New Movements in Art: Contemporary Work in England, held at the London Museum in Spring 1942. Gift of Collection Socit Anonyme 1941.474 Status: By appointment, Wurtele Study Center Culture: He incorporated principles from engineering and architecture into his creative explorations, and used his sculptures to describe and demonstrate new scientific concepts such as Einstein's space-time relativity. Discover (and save!) These earliest constructions originally in cardboard or wood were figurative such as the Head No.2 in the Tate collection. The sculpture was eventually installed as a fountain centre-piece for St. Thomas's Hospital, London in 1975, and in 1976 was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II during the hospital's official opening. He would later remark that "if anyone made me a Jew, it was Hitler". A reverse structure, and a kind of companion piece, to Linear Construction in Space No. Naum Gabo Column 1921 - 1922/75 The Work of Naum Gabo Nina and Graham Williams Biography Born 1890 Died 1977 Nationalities Russian American Birth place Klimovichi Death place Waterbury Gabo was born in Russia and trained in Munich as a scientist and engineer. The fact that it was intended as a model for a building exemplifies the Constructivist concern with giving art a functional purpose. Responding to the scientific and political revolutions of his age, Gabo led an eventful and peripatetic life, moving to Berlin, Paris, Oslo, Moscow, London, and finally the United States, and within the circles of the major avant-garde movements of the day, including Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, the Bauhaus, de Stijl and the Abstraction-Cration group. In the 1960s a project for enlarging Column had floundered in part, precisely because of his desire to ensure aesthetic quality.21 In 1971, however, Gabo had enough faith in Knud Jensen, director of the Louisiana Museum, to allow him to oversee the construction of a pair of large Columns in Denmark, using Gabos model, his specifications, and incorporating transparent Naum Gabo, KBE born Naum Neemia Pevsner (5 August[O.S. Characteristically, though, he disagreed with some of their functionalist principles. Naum Gabo Naum Neemia Pevsner Born: August 5, 1890; Bryansk, Russian Federation Died: August 23, 1977; Waterbury, Connecticut, United States Nationality: Russian, Jewish Art Movement: Constructivism, Kinetic art Painting School: Abstraction-Cration, St Ives School Genre: sculpture Field: painting, sculpture The use of industrial materials like metal and glass in works like Column was a way of emulating mechanical and architectural processes, as was the angular precision of the design. Drawing inspiration from his natural surroundings - a relatively new creative approach for Gabo - and from a series of photographs he had made that summer of light patterns reflected from shiny surfaces, Gabo created the first maquette for Spiral Theme. Like all the most important artists, his work and his life were fundamentally shaped by the era in which he lived, and helped to define that era in turn. This move gave Naum the excuse he had craved to abandon his studies and concentrate on his art. By incorporating moving parts into his sculpture, or static elements which strongly suggested movement, Gabo's work stands at the forefront of a whole artistic tradition, Kinetic Art, which uses art to represent time as well as space. Imaginative as Gabo was, his practicality lent itself to the conception and production of his works. The plan for Revolving Torsion was hatched following a visit from Norman Reid, director of the Tate Gallery, to Gabo's studio in the USA. Many other migr artists were congregating in England at this time, including old friends: Oskar Kokoschka, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, and Piet Mondrian. The Palace of the Soviets, according to the brief, was to consist of two auditoria holding 20,000 people in total, and would serve as a venue for mass meetings, demonstrations, and cultural events. Linear Construction in Space, another work created during Gabo's time in St. Ives, is formed from nylon filament thread wound taut around a Perspex framework, creating an intricate web that encases a central void. As news of the February 1917 Revolution broke, Naum and Antoine returned home to Russia, in time for the Bolshevik coup of October 1917. During this time he won acclamations by many critics and awards like the $1000 Mr and Mrs Frank G. Logan Art Institute Prize at the annual Chicago and Vicinity exhibition of 1954. His work combined geometric abstraction with a dynamic organization of form in small reliefs and constructions, monumental public sculpture and pioneering kinetic works Gabo had also begun after his arrival in England to experiment with new materials such as Perspex and stone, influenced by the Direct Carving of Moore and Hepworth, though materials were increasingly hard to source, and sales were poor. His friend, the art critic Herbert Read, described it as expressing "the highest point ever reached by the aesthetic intuition of man". In it, he sought to move past Cubism and Futurism, renouncing what he saw as the static, decorative use of color, line, volume and solid mass in favor of a new element he called "the kinetic rhythms () the basic forms of our perception of real time. Stainless steel - St Thomas's Hospital, London. Just before the onset of the First World War in 1914, Gabo discovered contemporary art, by reading Kandinskys Concerning the Spiritual in Art, which asserted the principles of abstract art. (German) Naum Gabo, 1890-1977, Annely Juda Fine Art, London, 1990. "Sculpture: Carving and construction in space,", The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection, Mr and Mrs Frank G. Logan Art Institute Prize. As a young man in post-Revolutionary Russia, Gabo was closely associated with Constructivism, [8], Rejecting the traditional notion that prints should be made in editions of identical impressions, Gabo instead preferred to use the monoprint format as a vehicle for artistic experimentation. Autumn 2007. The critic Herbert Read hailed it as 'the highest point ever reached by the aesthetic intuition of man'. Instead, they remained in St Ives for seven years, meeting with other artists regularly at Adrian Stokes's coastal property to discuss, according to Gabo, "Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, Eastern philosophies, and English marine traditions, behind the blackout curtains". The various versions of Linear Construction in Space No. Naum gabo artwork Rating: 4,3/10 1459 reviews. Linear Construction in Space No. In 1912 Gabo transferred to an engineering school in Munich where he discovered abstract art and met Wassily Kandinsky and in 1913-14 joined his brother Antoine (who by then was an established painter) in Paris. 2 is one of a set of early figurative works by Gabo now seen to have revolutionized sculpture. Ultimately, construction on the Palace of the Soviets was aborted by the German invasion of Russia in 1941, and never resumed. He made the first of a series of small, three-dimensional models, using glass, metal and new plastics the following year but owing to the size and nature of the work, and the unstable nature of new plastics, he was unable to Constructed from flat planes of intersecting plywood this Madonna-like figure alludes to the icon paintings that Gabo would have seen in Russian Orthodox domestic interiors, traditionally placed high up in the corner of the room, as if watching over the inhabitants below. Responding to the scientific and political revolutions of his age, Gabo led an eventful and peripatetic life, moving to Berlin, Paris, Oslo, Moscow, London, and finally the United States, and within the circles of the major avant-garde movements of the day, including Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, the Bauhaus, de Stijl and the Abstraction-Cration group. Constructed Head No. It was here he created his so-called Constructed Heads, signing them as Gabo rather than Pevsner to distinguish himself from his artist brother Antoine, who had joined Naum and Alexei in Norway, and to indicate a new, revolutionary direction in his art. Gabo saw the Revolution as the beginning of a renewal of human values. Gabo's engineering training was key to the development of his sculptural work that often used machined elements. The transparent planes build upon and reveal the sections below, suggesting emergence and growth. Wassily Kandinsky's revelatory book on abstract art, Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1912), was gaining currency at this time, and fomented Gabo's interest in representing the structures and forces of nature. The same year he was introduced to Miriam Israels, who he would marry in 1937, with Nicholson and Hepworth as witnesses. Gabo's formative years were in Munich, where he was inspired by and actively participated in the artistic, scientific, and philosophical debates of the early years of the 20th century. Ren Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy is a philosophical treatise that was published in 1641. He was part of the St Ives group in Cornwall, alongside Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson. In generating the impression of volume in empty space, Gabo was responding to contemporary scientific theories stressing the "disintegration between solids and surrounding space". The introduction of a liquid element into the body of the sculpture is highly significant, with the surfaces formed by the jets of water replacing the string meshwork of the Linear Constructions in creating the illusion of solid matter. Again, this sculpture represents a creative departure from Gabo's previous work. 'I consider this Column the culmination of that search. 2 is a figurative bust, one of four similar works that characterize Gabo's early career, created during his period of refuge in Norway during World War One. 2023 The Art Story Foundation. Tate Papers / Artwork page for Spiral Theme, Naum Gabo, 1941 When Spiral Theme was shown in wartime London, it was greeted with popular acclaim. In a sense, his approach to the project had developed out his earlier interest, as a sculptor, in the difference between mass and volume: how a space could be articulated without being filled with solid elements. Gabo found his time in Cornwall emotionally challenging, and he experienced severe creative block, potentially a psychological effect of the war: he was following developments in Europe with great anxiety, worried for his family, with whom he had all but lost touch. 1928, rebuilt 1938 Perspex and plastic on aluminum base 27 11.3 10 cm (10 5/8 4 7/16 3 15/16 in.) Gabo was born Naum Pevsner in the small Russian town of Bryansk, the sixth of seven brothers and sisters. Plastic and nylon threads - Collection of the Tate, United Kingdom. Like lots of Gabo's later, large-scale public works, Revolving Torsion is the final realization of a theme previously expressed across a range of scales and materials, in this case as various plastic and metal models created from the late 1920s onwards: Model for Torsion (circa 1928), Torsion: Project for a Fountain (1960-64), etcetera. Mondrian was penniless when he arrived in London in 1938, and while Hepworth and Nicholson found him accommodation in Hampstead, Gabo supplied his companion from Abstraction-Cration with clothes, furniture, and food. 2 (1949), "We renounce in sculpture, the mass as a sculptural element [.] We renounce the thousand-year-old delusion in art that held the static rhythms as the only elements of the plastic and pictorial arts. In 1931, towards the end of his decade in Germany, Gabo produced architectural plans for a government competition to create a new building in Moscow, commemorating the founding of the USSR. Though Boris was Jewish, the siblings were brought up Christian through the influence of their Russian Orthodox grandmother, and Naum would distance himself from his Jewish roots for much of his life. Because of his involvement in these intellectual debates, Gabo became a leading figure in Moscows avant garde, in post-Revolution Russia. The use of space in the work, in this case the central void enclosed by the surrounding Perspex, becomes a newly prominent feature. Work by Gabo is also included at Rockefeller Center in New York City and The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection in Albany, New York, US. [1] These include Constructie, a 25-metre (82ft) commemorative monument in front of the Bijenkorf Department Store (1954, unveiled in 1957) in Rotterdam, and Revolving Torsion, a large fountain outside St Thomas' Hospital in London. The birth of a daughter, Nina Serafima, in 1941, also brought him out of a period of creative torpor. Metal, wood and electric motor - Collection of the Tate, United Kingdom. Naum, Miriam, and Nina lived in the USA for 30 years, settling briefly in New York, then moving to Woodbury, Connecticut in 1947. With the onset of World War I, Gabo and his younger brother Alexei, also based in Germany, fled via Copenhagen to neutral Norway, partly to avoid serving in the Imperial Army, and partly because, as Russian nationals, they were suddenly pariahs in their new home. Moving away from the geometrical precision typical of 1920s modernist architecture - the work of Le Corbusier, for example - Gabo's work predicts later developments in the style, such as the curvilinear forms of Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer's designs for Braslia in the 1950s. For the British artists, the string is an addition to the dominant sculptural form, and is widely spaced, adding distinct lines and texture which contrast with solid mass. His command of several languages contributed greatly to his mobility during his career. Gabo made preliminary designs for Column in 1921 with the idea of making it into a large public sculpture, towering over the hills near Moscow. Less publicly, he derided Tatlin for "playing around with engineering forms and materials". Gabo was a fluent speaker and writer in German, French, and English in addition to his native Russian. ", "Sculpture personifies and inspires the ideas of all great epochs. See the renowned permanent collection and special exhibitions. As a Russian, he was under constant suspicion, and had to report regularly to the police until 1941, when Britain and Russia became uneasy allies. Ren Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy is a philosophical treatise that was published in 1641. ), (London 1957), note between pls.25 and 26, and p.183, A model for the column 104cm high in plastic, wood and, After making the large version, Gabo also made three models in plastic about 25.4cm high which belong to Sir Leslie Martin, Cambridge, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, and Nina S. Gabo, London. See the renowned permanent collection and special exhibitions. 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