NAUM GABO Artist

By: Sankavy Balasingam

WHO IS NAUM GABO ?

Naum Neemia Pevsner is a native Russian sculptor and painter and better known as Naum Gabo. He is recognised for his Kinetic, Contractual Art and some of his work are similar to mathematical and scientific shapes. He was born on the 5th August 1890 in Russia and passed away on 23rd August 1977 in USA. He studied engineering in college and from there on he was interested into Sculpting.

Naum Gabo was mentored and inspired by the great artist Wassily Kandinsky. Gabo’s earliest constructions were originally in cardboard and wood and he slowly began to experiment with Glass , Plastic and Metal.

In 1920 Naum Gabo and his brother who is also a painter issued the “Realistic Manifesto” of Constructivism in which he criticized cubism and futurism as not fully abstract arts and proclaiming the ideologies of pure constructivism. Realistic Manifesto should be expressions, aims and philosophy behind his Art work. The sculptor spend most of his time in Berlin, Munich, where he also gets his inspirations from. He later moved to USA and in 1953 -54 taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Architecture.

HIS WORK

Naum Gabo’s work is very figurative and later on the years his work became different and

more Geometric and had a kinetic touch to it. He was strong influenced by the

Mathematical and Scientific shapes. His intentions in his work are to divorce art from

conventions and the use of lines, colour, volume and mass. Naum Gabo’s work was all

about exploring space and the formal experiment depicting volume of a figure. In 1920

Gabo produced Kinetic Composition, a sculpture that demonstrates his ideologies by

combining elements of space and time. Lines and string is something he used repeatedly

in his sculptures and looking closely it shows clear accuracy .

Gabo and his brother have experience in Theatre Designing, the brothers have designed

the set and costume for Diaghilev's ballet LA Chatte 1935.

HIS WORK CONTINUED

Opus 7 (Naum Gabo)

Linear Construction in

Space No.2 (Naum Gabo)

Model for Monument for an

Airport ( Naum Gabo)

Construction in Space,

Suspended (Naum Gabo)

EXHIBITIONS

• Berlinsche Galerie, Berlin, Germany

• Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York

• Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada

• Tate, London

• Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Washington DC

American Museum

• Museum of Modern Art, New York

• Dallas Museum of Art, Texas

• Whitney Museum of Art, New York

• Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas

• Phillips Collection, Washington DC

• Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

• Albright Knox Museum, Buffalo, NY

• European Museum

• Asian Museum