This is not only in the material world surrounding us, but also in the mental and spiritual world we carry within us.". In the calmness at the still centre of even his smallest works, we sense the vastness of space, the enormity of his conception, time as continuous growth." Around this time, he also saw many Post-Impressionist and Cubist works in Russia, where the entrepreneur and art-collector Sergei Shchukin exhibited his European collection regularly. 'From the very beginning of the Constructive Movement it was clear to me that a constructed, , Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.236-7, reproduced p.236, Model for Construction in Space Two Cones, Model for Construction in Space Crystal. Gabo grew up in a Jewish family of six children in the provincial Russian town of Bryansk, where his father owned a factory. Boris Pevsner owned a successful metal works and rolling mill, which supplied many of the railways around Russia. This meant he could incorporate empty spaces into his sculptures. After the Soviet Union withdrew from World War I in 1917 and the threat of a draft was over, Pevsner and his brother, sculptor Naum Gabo, returned to Moscow to participate in the utopian fervor of building a new egalitarian society. Characteristically, though, he disagreed with some of their functionalist principles. As a student of medicine, natural science and engineering, his understanding of the order present in the natural world mystically links all creation in the universe. From an early age, Naum was strong-minded, rebellious, and politically driven. By the early 1930s, the political climate in Germany had grown increasingly nationalistic, anti-semitic, and toxic. He made his first geometrical constructions while living in Oslo in 1915. Public response to the work in the London Museum show was similarly positive, its lush organic forms perhaps providing a similar form of solace to a public in the grips of war as the shells of Carbis Bay had to its creator. In 1920, Gabo exhibited in his first show, an outdoor exhibition in a bandstand on the Tverskoy Boulevard in central Moscow, with brother Antoine and Latvian artist and photographer Gustav Klutsis. Gabo's other concern as described in the Realistic Manifesto was that art needed to exist actively in four dimensions including time. Gabo saw the Revolution as the beginning of a renewal of human values. Away from war-torn Europe, Gabo found artistic freedom and financial security. 2 is one of a set of early figurative works by Gabo now seen to have revolutionized sculpture. One of four models made in anticipation of two larger sculptures, Spiral Theme is a curvilinear, transparent construction with a central vertical element, reminiscent of the shells Gabo found on the beaches around St. Ives, his home from 1939 to 1946. 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. Despite this, the European art market was struggling and Europe seemed increasingly unsafe. Gabo had lived through a revolution and two world wars; he was also Jewish and had fled Nazi Germany. He moved back to Russia in 1917, to become involved in politics and art, spending five years in Moscow with his brother Antoine. Whereas the Tate's model has a red base, the bases of the others are either black or (in the case of Nina Gabo's version) stainless steel. This subtle interplay is complemented by the interplay of shadows on the pool of water below. Such efforts were galvanized by the formalisation of ideas associated with Constructivism, partly through the creation of the First Working Group of Constructivists in Moscow in March 1921. 2 grew from Gabo's unrealized plans for two public sculptures to stand outside the new Esso Building at the Rockefeller Center in New York. 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 The Work of Naum Gabo Nina & Graham Williams / Tate, London 2023. Born in Russia, he had lived in Germany, Norway, France and then from 1936 to 1946 in England. As a young man in post-Revolutionary Russia, Gabo was closely associated with Constructivism, which sought to blur the boundaries between creative and functional processes. 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. The same year, he became a citizen of the United States, and in 1953 the family moved to Middlebury, Connecticut. Gift of Collection Socit Anonyme 1941.474 Status: By appointment, Wurtele Study Center Culture: Gabos acute awareness of turmoil sought out solace in the peacefulness that was so fully realized in his ideal art forms. [8], Gabo pioneered the use of plastics, such as cellulose acetate, in his sculptures. 2 2022-10-21. 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. By the time he reached England in 1936 Gabo was an internationally recognized artist, and he was welcomed warmly by British artists and critics such as Barbara Hepworth, her future husband Ben Nicholson, and Herbert Read, many of whom Gabo had met in Paris through Abstraction-Cration. He was part of the St Ives group in Cornwall, alongside Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson. [1] His work combined geometric abstraction with a dynamic organization of form in small reliefs and constructions, monumental public sculpture and pioneering kinetic works that assimilated new materials such as nylon, wire, lucite and semi-transparent materials, glass and metal. Cellulose, acetate and Perspex - Collection of the Tate, United Kingdom. To a sibling he wrote: "I'm very sorry I've had to absorb such a mass of interesting impressions alone". 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 two interlocking vertical planes in this piece, for example, generate a rectangular form without creating a solid rectangle. It was in Munich that Gabo attended the lectures of art historian Heinrich Wlfflin and gained knowledge of the ideas of Einstein and his fellow innovators of scientific theory, as well as the philosopher Henri Bergson. Naum Gabo, born Naum Neemia Pevsner (5 August[O.S. Artwork page for Spiral Theme, Naum Gabo, 1941 When Spiral Theme was shown in wartime London, it was greeted with popular acclaim. A sojourn in Paris from 1911 to 1914 introduced him to cubism and futurism, two radical new approaches to making art. Despite severe economic hardship, Gabo threw himself into the cause over the next five years, later recalling that "at the beginning we were all working for the Government". It is March 1950 and Naum Gabo (1890-1977), the world-famous sculptor, is stabbing a mahogany table leg. 2022-10-21. An elegant public artwork constructed from curved, stainless steel plates, designed for installation in a pool of water, Revolving Torsion represents the culmination of principles of Kinetic art first explored over 50 years earlier by Gabo's Kinetic Construction. In a highly memorable and traumatic encounter, he witnessed the brutality of the Cossacks against a protester, later recalling: "I was 15 years old and that day and that night I became a revolutionary". The couple remained together for the remainder of Gabo's life, ironically supporting themselves initially with money from Miriam's ex-husband, as well as funds from occasional sales of Gabo's work. 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. In 1932, Gabo fled the "unbreathable" atmosphere of Germany for Paris, where he would remain for four years. 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. The "Project for a Radio Station" which I did in the winter of 1919-20, and Tatlin's model for the 3rd International done a year earlier, indicate the trend of our thoughts at that time. The books and articles below constitute a bibliography of the sources used in the writing of this page. His command of several languages contributed greatly to his mobility during his career. The critic Herbert Read hailed it as 'the highest point ever reached by the aesthetic intuition of man'. Sep 22, 2013 - This Pin was discovered by Sesit. See the renowned permanent collection and special exhibitions. 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. Naum Gabo: The Constructive Process, Tate Gallery, November 1976-January 1977 (17, repr.) 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. Though he was to live in self-imposed exile in Europe and America for most of his adult life, he always lamented his distance from Russia, where he claimed his "consciousness was moulded". [Internet]. The work is composed of six meditations, in which Descartes attempts to establish a firm The same year he was introduced to Miriam Israels, who he would marry in 1937, with Nicholson and Hepworth as witnesses. His maquettes for that project, and the earliest version of Linear Construction 2, date from 1949; the version in the Tate Collection was specially constructed and donated by the artist in 1969, in memory of his friend Herbert Read (it was rebuilt in 1971). Gabo chose to look past all that was dark in his life, creating sculptures that though fragile are balanced so as to give us a sense of the constructions delicately holding turmoil at bay. Showing his openness to new techniques and influences, Gabo inscribed dynamic rhythms into the surfaces of stone - his new-found fascination with this material would occupy him until his death. The use of space in the work, in this case the central void enclosed by the surrounding Perspex, becomes a newly prominent feature. 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 In 1952, despite finishing ahead of 3,500 other artists, he was disappointed to be awarded second prize in the Institute of Contemporary Art's Unknown Political Prisoner international sculpture competition, his abstract monument design having been perceived to lack emotion. The larger versions of Spiral Theme arose from Gabo's discovery, in 1935, of a new compositional material, Perspex, which had increased flexibility when heated, and was more transparent than the celluloid he had used in earlier works. Gabo was a fluent speaker and writer in German, French, and English in addition to his native Russian. At the same time, he was moved by works that looked back to indigenous Russian artistic traditions, experimenting with romantic and expressive watercolors that drew heavily on the paintings of Mikhail Vrubel. St. Ives, Cornwall had been home to a large community of artists since the 1920s, including Bernard Leach, Adrian Stokes, and the fisherman and artistic savant Alfred Wallis. Celluloid and plastic, 5 5/8 x 3 3/4 x 3 3/4 (14.4 x 9.4 x 9.4) Naum Gabo, KBE born Naum Neemia Pevsner (5 August[O.S. They resumed late-night conversations begun in Paris earlier in the decade, on Constructivism, Neo-Plasticism, and the illusionistic space of the painting. 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. The Tate Gallery in London, which has the world's largest collection of his early works, is battling their chemical degradation. Gabo's engineering training was key to the development of his sculptural work that often used machined elements. Ultimately, construction on the Palace of the Soviets was aborted by the German invasion of Russia in 1941, and never resumed. The appearance of the busts shifts and modulates constantly, based on viewing angle, lighting, and other ambient factors. [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. Many of Gabo's sculptures first appeared as tiny models. These earliest constructions originally in cardboard or wood were figurative such as the Head No.2 in the Tate collection. His work combined geometric abstraction with a dynamic organization of form in small reliefs and constructions, monumental public sculpture and pioneering kinetic works Moscow was caught up in a tumultuous mix of revolutionary fervor and the strife of civil war. The full text of the article is here , Two Cubes (Demonstrating the Stereometric Method), Model for 'Construction in Space, Suspended', Construction in Space with Crystalline Centre, Model for 'Construction in Space 'Two Cones''.