Naum Gabo

Gabo grew up in a Jewish family of six children in the provincial Russian town of Briansk, where his father owned a metal works. His older brother was fellow Constructivist artist Antoine Pevsner; Gabo changed his name to avoid confusion with him.

Naum Gabo was a sculptor of Constructivism who professed Formalistic tendencies. Gabo studied medicine, natural science and engineering at Munich University. At that time he had the opportunity to hear Heinrich Wolfflin's lectures on art history which, it is said, prompted the discovery that he had interest in both science and art. In 1917 after his return to Russia he made an active commitment to the avant-garde movement. The impetus provided by an exhibition in 1922 in Berlin, transformed him into a German Constructivist and from the 1930s he even more actively participated in abstract trends. His works can be roughly divided into three different categories: surface, line and moving sculptures and this work falls into the second. Gabo considered line to be one element of construction, and worked as if he were creating something as elaborate as woven fiber. This sculpture, composed of translucent plastic line, was begun towards the end of the 1930s. By connecting these plastic lines, to the basic structure its organic form was created. Thus an object with volume but lacking the appearance of weight was created. In addition, he was able to bring external space into the interior of the object and visualize it. The tightly stretched strings also inspire a feeling of tension as well as hinting at movement. Works such as this one, which suggested movement and those of his sculptures, which actually did move, made him a pioneer in the Kinetic Art movement.

Biography

1890 Born 5 August in Briansk, Russia. Named Naum Neemia Pevsner. He had four brothers, including Alexei and Antoine, and two sisters.

1910 Graduated from Gymnasium at Kursk. Enrolled in medical faculty at University of Munich.

1910-14 In Munich.

1911 Transferred to study of natural sciences.

1912 Studied engineering at Technische Hochschule, Munich. During these years attended Professor Wölfflin’s lectures on the History of Art. First visit to Paris.

1913 Walking tour through Italy from Munich to Florence and Venice.

1913-14 Visited brother Antoine who was painting in Paris.

1914 At outbreak of war went to Copenhagen, Bergen, and then Oslo with younger brother Alexei.

1915 Made first constructions using the name Gabo. December: joined by elder brother Antoine.

1917 April: returned to Russia.

1918-20 Worked on constructions and taught unofficially at State Free Art Studios. Project for a radio station at Serpukhov.

1920 First public exhibition in the open air on Tverskoi Boulevard, Moscow. Wrote Realistic Manifesto, published in Moscow, which was also signed by brother Antoine. First construction with motor.

1922 Left Moscow for Berlin. Helped to install and exhibited in the Erste Russische Kunstausstellung, organised by the Soviet Government at the Galerie van Diemen, Berlin. ‘Project for a Monument for an Observatory’.

1922-32 Lived and worked in Berlin.

1924 Exhibited at the Galerie Percier, Paris: Constructivistes Russes: Gabo et Pevsner and was included in Societé Anonyme, Russian exhibition in New York.

1924-25 ‘Project for a Monument for an Airport’.

1925 Project for a Monument for an Institute of Physics and Mathematics.

1926 Exhibited in America at the Little Review Gallery, New York, with van Doesburg and Pevsner. Began work on La Chatte.

1927 April 30, first performance of La Chatte at the Casino Theatre in Monte Carlo with sets, costumes and properties designed and executed by Gabo with assistance from Pevsner (the production also travelled to Paris, London and Berlin).

1928 Lectured at Bauhaus. Published article ‘Gestaltung?’ in the periodical Bauhaus (vol. 2 no. 4).

1929 Project for a Fête Lumière for the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin.

1930 First one-man exhibition of constructions at the Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hanover.

1931 Project for the Palace of the Soviets Competition.

1932 Left Germany for Paris. ‘Project for a Monument for an Airport’.

1932-35 Member of the group Abstraction-Création.

1935 First visit to England.

Exhibited in Hartford, Connecticut with Pevsner, Domela and Mondrian.

1936 Exhibited with fifteen artists in Abstract and Concrete at the Lefèvre Gallery, London. Exhibited with Pevsner at the Chicago Arts Club. Seven works included in Cubism and Abstract Art at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Settled in London. Married Miriam Israels in London.

1937 Edited with J. L. Martin and Ben Nicholson Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art. Two works included in large Constructivist exhibition at the Kunsthalle Basel, and two in Constructivist exhibition at the London Gallery, London. Participated in exhibition in Jeu de Paume, Paris.

1938 One-man exhibition at the London Gallery, London. Visited the United States: exhibited at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, at the Julien Levy Gallery, New York and at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie.

1939 At outbreak of war moved to Carbis Bay, Cornwall. Exhibited one work in the San Francisco Golden Gate exhibition, another in Toledo, Ohio, two in Guggenheim Jeune, London, one in Museum of Modern Art, New York, more than one in Galerie Charpentier, Paris.

1941 Birth of daughter Nina Serafima.

1942 Exhibited in New Movements in Art: Contemporary Work in England, London Museum, London and Leicester Museum and Art Gallery.

The Exhibition of the Collection of the Societé Anonyme - Museum of Modern Art, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven.

1943-44 Worked with Design Research Unit, London. Produced an advanced design for a car for Jowett which did not go into production.

1946 Left England for the United States.

1948 Exhibited with Pevsner at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Lectured at Museum of Modern Art and at Yale and Chicago Institute of Design.

1949 Commissioned to design sculptures for lobbies of the Esso Building, Rockefeller Center, New York (project never realised). Participated in Les Premières maîtres de l’art abstrait organised by Michael Seuphor at Galerie Maeght, Paris.

1950 Commissioned to make construction for the Sadie A. May wing of the Baltimore Museum of Art. Exhibited and lectured at Baltimore Museum of Art.

1951 Baltimore construction completed and installed. Exhibition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

1952 Became a citizen of the United States of America. Exhibition, with Josef Albers, at the Chicago Arts Club.

1953 One-man exhibition at the Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York. Exhibition, with Alexander Calder, at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford. Awarded second prize in the Unknown Political Prisoner, international sculpture competition.

1953-54 Professor at Harvard University Graduate School of Architecture.

1954 Awarded Guggenheim Fellowship. Awarded Mr and Mrs Frank G. Logan Medal of the Art Institute of Chicago.

1954-55 Commissioned to make sculpture for the Bijenkorf Building in Rotterdam.

1956 Commissioned to make bas-relief for the US Rubber Company, Rockefeller Center, New York. Completed in November.

1957 Bijenkorf construction, 85 feet high, completed and installed. Publication of Gabo book by Lund Humphries.

1958 One-man exhibition, Boymans Museum, Rotterdam and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

1959 Delivered A. W. Mellon Lectures, Washington D.C. Brother Alexei re- discovered Gabo through an exhibition catalogue.

1960 Prize from the Brandeis University.

1961 Participated in exhibitions of kinetic art held at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm.

1962 Visited brothers Mark, Jeremy and Alexei, and sister Anna, in Moscow and Leningrad. Antoine Pevsner died.

1964 Publication of Alexei Pevsner’s book A Biographical Sketch of my Brothers Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner.

1965 Elected member of the National Institute of Art and Letters.

1965-66 Retrospective exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Kunsthalle Mannheim; Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum, Duisburg; Kunsthaus Zürich; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Tate Gallery, London.

1966 Elected to Royal Academy of Arts, Sweden.

1967 Awarded Honorary Doctorate at Royal College of Art, London. Awarded Großer Kunstpreis des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen.

1968 Retrospective exhibition at Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York. Alexei Pevsner visited Gabo in America.

1969 Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

1970 Commissioned to make Torsion fountain, installed at St. Thomas’s Hospital, London in 1975.

1970-72 Travelling Exhibition: Louisiana Museet, Humlebaek, Denmark; Sonia Henies Museum, Høvikodden, Norway; Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo; Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Kunstverein Hannover; Musée de Peinture et Sculpture, Grenoble; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris; Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon.

Alexei Pevsner visited Gabo in London.

1971 Made an Honorary K.B.E.

1973 Commissioned to make sculpture for the Nationalgalerie, Berlin.

1975 Elected to 50-member American Academy of Arts and Letters.

1976 November 16: opening of St. Thomas’s Hospital, London and inauguration of Torsion fountain by Queen Elizabeth II.

1976-77 November - January: One-man exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London.

1977 August 23, died in Waterbury (Connecticut) Hospital after a long illness.

1985-87 Major retrospective Naum Gabo. Sixty Years of Constructivism shown at Dallas Museum of Art; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Akademie der Künste, Berlin; Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf; The Tate Gallery, London.

1988 Naum Gabo. The Constructive Idea (organised by the Arts Council of Great Britain) at Oxford Museum Modern Art; Hatton Gallery, Newcastle; Ferens Art Gallery, Hull; Manchester City Art Gallery; Birmingham City Art Gallery; Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum.

1987-88 Exhibition of monoprints shown at the Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh and Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge. In 1989 tours to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the Baltimore Museum of Art.

1990 Centenary exhibition inaugurates new gallery space of Annely Juda Fine Art.

1999 Naum Gabo, Annely Juda Fine Art, London. Naum Gabo: Pioneer of Abstract Sculpture at Pace Wildenstein Gallery, New York

2001 Naum Gabo, Georges Vantongerloo, Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart -Works On Paper, Annely Juda Fine Art, London

Selected Literature

Naum Gabo et al., Gabo: Constructions, Sculpture, Paintings, Drawings, Engravings, Lund Humphries, London and Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1957

Alexei Pevsner, A Biographical Sketch of my Brothers Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner, Augustin and Schoonman, Amsterdam 1964

Jörn Merkert and Steven Nash (eds), Naum Gabo. Sixty Years of Constructivism, Prestel Verlag, Munich 1985 (includes C. Sanderson and C. Lodder, ‘Catalogue Raisonné of the Constructions and Sculptures’)

Graham Williams (ed.), Naum Gabo Monoprints, The Florin Press, Kent 1987

Jörn Merkert (ed.), Naum Gabo: Ein Russischer Konstruktivist in Berlin 1922-32, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin 1989

Naum Gabo 1890-1977: Centenary Exhibition, Annely Juda Fine Art, London 1990

Naum Gabo, Annely Juda Fine Art, London 1999

Martin Hammer and Christina Lodder, Gabo on Gabo: Texts and Interviews, Artist Bookworks, Sussex 2000

Martin Hammer and Christina Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, Yale University Press, New Haven and London 2000

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