Naum Gabo
Naum Gabo KBE | |
---|---|
Born | Naum Neemia Pevsner 5 August 1890 |
Died | 23 August 1977 | (aged 87)
Nationality | Russian |
Known for | Sculpture, Kinetic art, Printmaking |
Movement | Constructivism |
Naum Gabo,
Gabo elaborated many of his ideas in the Constructivist
Early life and education
Gabo grew up in a
In 1910, after schooling in
Constructivism
After the outbreak of war, Gabo moved first to Copenhagen then Oslo with his older brother Alexei, making his first constructions under the name Naum Gabo in 1915. These earliest constructions originally in cardboard or wood were figurative such as the Head No.2 in the Tate collection. He moved back to Russia in 1917, to become involved in politics and art, spending five years in Moscow with his brother Antoine.
Gabo contributed to the
In Germany Gabo came into contact with the artists of the
Gabo visited London in 1935, and settled in 1936, where he found a "spirit of optimism and sympathy for his position as an abstract artist". At the outbreak of World War II he followed his friends Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson to St Ives in Cornwall, where he stayed initially with the art critic Adrian Stokes and his wife Margaret Mellis. While in Cornwall he continued to work, albeit on a smaller scale. His influence was important to the development of modernism within St Ives, and it can be seen most conspicuously in the paintings and constructions of John Wells and Peter Lanyon, both of whom developed a softer more pastoral form of Constructivism.
In 1946 Gabo and his wife and daughter emigrated to the United States, where they resided first in Woodbury, and later in Middlebury, Connecticut. Gabo died in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1977 and his wife in 1993.
Gabo's theory of art
The essence of Gabo's art was the exploration of space, which he believed could be done without having to depict mass.[7] His earliest constructions such as Head No.2 were formal experiments in depicting the volume of a figure without carrying its mass. Gabo's other concern as described in the Realistic Manifesto was that art needed to exist actively in four dimensions including time.
Gabo's formative years were in
Gabo’s vision is imaginative and passionate. Over the years his exhibitions have generated immense enthusiasm because of the emotional power present in his sculpture. Gabo described himself as "making images to communicate my feelings of the world." In his work, Gabo used time and space as construction elements and in them solid matter unfolds and becomes beautifully
Caroline Collier, an authority on Gabo’s work, said, "The real stuff of Gabo’s art is not his physical materials, but his perception of space, time and movement. 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." In fact, the element of movement in Gabo’s sculpture is connected to a strong rhythm, more implicit and deeper than the chaotic patterns of life itself. The exactness of form leads the viewer to imagine journeying into, through, over and around his sculptures.
Gabo wrote his Realistic Manifesto, in which he ascribed his philosophy for his constructive art and his joy at the opportunities opened up by the
Gabo had lived through a revolution and two world wars; he was also Jewish and had fled Nazi Germany. Gabo’s acute awareness of turmoil sought out solace in the peacefulness that was so fully realized in his “ideal” art forms. It was in his sculpture that he evaded all the chaos, violence, and despair he had survived. 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.
Printmaking
Gabo began printmaking in 1950, when he was persuaded to try out the medium by William Ivins, a former curator of prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, New York. His first print was a wood engraving in a section of wood taken from a piece of furniture and printed onto a piece of toilet paper. He went on to produce a significant and varied body of graphic work, including much more elaborate and lyrical compositions, until his death in 1977.[8]
Rejecting the traditional notion that prints should be made in editions of identical impressions, Gabo instead preferred to use the
Art conservation challenges
Gabo pioneered the use of plastics, such as
Writings
- Of Divers Arts (1962). New York: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-05231-8
References
- ^ a b c Tate Gallery. Naum Gabo biography. Retrieved March 23, 2018.
- ^ a b Hammer, Martin and Naum Gabo, Christina Lodder. Constructing Modernity: The Art & Career of Naum Gabo, Yale University Press, 2000.
- ^ a b Chipp, Herschel B. Theories of Modern Art, Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968, p. 312.
- ^ de la Croix, Horst and Richard G. Tansey, Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 7th Ed., New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980, p. 842-4.
- ^ a b Gabo, Naum. "Sculpture: Carving and construction in space," Circle: International Survey of Constructive Arts, eds. J.L. Martin, Ben Nicholson, and Naum Gabo, London: Faber & Faber, 1937, p. 103–111. Reprinted 1966 (New York: George Wittenborn).
- ^ Gabo, Naum. The Realistic Manifesto, Moscow, 5 August 1920. Translated in Gabo, Sir Herbert Read & Leslie Martin, London: Lund Humphries, 1957.
- ^ Dekel, Gil (May 2009). "Inspiration: a functional approach to creative practice" (PDF). Thesis. Poetic Mind. p. 92. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2011-10-04.
- ^ ISBN 978-0993248559.
- ^ Alberge, Dalya (18 May 2015). "V&A conservators race to preserve art and design classics in plastic". The Guardian. Retrieved 2021-09-13.
External links
- Works by or about Naum Gabo at Internet Archive
- Naum Gabo at the Tate Gallery Archive
- Naum Gabo at the Nasher Sculpture Center
- Naum Gabo Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.