Naum Gabo - Russian and internationalist Constructivist artist

Only twice have I ever mentioned Naum Gabo in my blog. Firstly in the mid 1930s Ivon Hitchens lived in a Hampstead studio, within a circle of avant-garde artists known as The London Group. The group included the other members of the 7 & 5 Society, plus new exciting artists like Englishman Paul Nash. They were soon joined by Naum Gabo who had moved from Russia to Munich and Paris for years, then Britain in 1936. Secondly Ben Nicholson married the sculptress Barbara Hepworth in 1938 and with the outbreak of WW2 in 1939, they decided to settle in St Ives. Gabo and the artists made sleepy old West Cornwall trendy.

Russian Naum Pevsner Gabo (1890–1977) was a pioneer. In Moscow, he was involved in the early growth of Construct­ivism and supported the international development of this movement after he left Russia in 1922. Living and working across Europe, Gabo int­eg­­rat­ed into the artistic scene of cities like Moscow, Munich, Par­is, Ber­l­in and London, and influenced some C20th artistic movements. In Britain he joined commun­ities of modern artists in London and St Iv­es where his geometric abstraction found inspiration in natural forms. Gabo was also known as a designer, sculptor, painter and printmaker. And as a theorist and writer, he lectured con­sis­t­ently throughout his career. Best of all, he married Miriam Israels in London.

  

 Naum Gabo 

Constructed torso, 1917

cardboard

Tate London

Gabo’s legacy has influenced several generations of prac­titioners across the world including artists and architects working with ab­s­t­ract and organic forms, kinetic and installation artists. Even when he settled in the U.S in 1946, Gabo gained sig­nif­ic­ant fame via publications, lectures and public commissions. Now back to his theory base:

1) Art should drive social change Gabo believed art could challenge audiences and make them think about the world in diff­erent ways. His practice aimed to communicate themes about modern life and to establish the essential role of art within society.

Gabo was keen that his artistic ideas were not exclusive. He wanted art to be a part of daily life through architecture, film and live arts. And he advocated the use of widely available industrial mat­er­­ials like glass and sheet metal as well as contemporary innov­at­ions like Perspex and nylon cord. He believed art that refl­ec­ted the concerns of the modern world could bring about social change

2) Art should be realistic Co-signed by brother Ant­oine Pevsner, the radical The Realistic Manifesto (1920) redefined con­vent­ion­al approaches to sol­id mass, volume, line and colour and advocated for the inclusion of space, time and movement.

The decree also proposed art be taken out of galleries and onto the streets, bringing it closer to real life. Their ideas were comm­un­ic­­­­ated through a poster, hung on official hoardings across Mos­cow! The manifesto accompanied an open-air exhib­ition of paintings and sculptures by Gabo and Pevsner on the city’s busy Tverskoi Blvd.

Gabo meant that art should be grounded by the pre­s­ent. It should express actual experiences, not illusions. He chal­l­enged the ev­ol­ving styles of modern painting such as Fut­ur­ism and Cubism, which were gaining influence across Europe. These art forms translated a visual experience of real life in­­to two-dimensional representation. Gabo felt they had not gone far enough rejecting artistic tradit­ions. He wanted art to be non-representational, dynamic and interactive, to be univ­er­sal­ly relevant.

3)  Art should reflect the time we live in The Realistic Manifesto advocated that art should reflect the modern age and that art should be constructed. Gabo thought, as society progressed, art should to. This would be in accordance with the ethical, scientific and technological developments of the day. In Moscow he taught at the Free Art Studios, because it was fostering the new generation of artists engaged with public art, architecture and design. 

 Naum Gabo 

Head #2,  1916

steel

Tait St Ives

In Germany Naum became central to contemporary issues, so naturally he collaborated with the Bauhaus School in 1928. Bauh­aus was the vitally important and rather revolutionary school of art, architecture and design established by Walter Gropius at Weim­ar in 1919. In mid 1923 he visited Bauhaus with El Lissitzky, but this did not result in any longterm contract for either artist. 

In the 1930s Gabo moved to Paris to escape growing Nazism. During this time, he joined a group of international abst­ract artists who were opposed to surrealism’s ideals. They proposed uni­v­ersal harmony in abstract forms as a response to the political and social upheavals then. This was captured in Gabo’s 1937 text The Constructive Idea in Art published after his move to London.

4) Art should be for all Gabo saw art as a universal form of communication that transcended social, political and cultural bar­r­iers. Gabo created schemes for monuments and build­ings to be seen in the public realm. His practice covered the arts from theatre, film, design and architecture, to sculpture and paint­­­ing, specific­ally so his art could reach the widest audience. A number of his sculptural models were turned into large public commissions in Rotter­d­am, Lond­on, Oslo, Princeton and Baltimore.

In the UK his work is in London Tate and Tate St Ives in Cornwall. Gabo was an integral member of the modern arts, based on the Cor­n­ish coast throughout WW2. Post-war he settled with his wife and child in the U.S. He gained inter­national fame via touring shows, public commissions, teaching and writing. Gabo's id­eol­ogies remain­ed central to international debates on abstract art from 1920s on.

Naum Gabo’s exhibition, Art For The Modern World, returned to Cornwall for first major exhibition in 30 years. Closing in March 2020 amid Covid19, Tate St Ives reopened the Gabo exhibition in Aug. With 80 works drawn largely from the Tate and the Berlinische Gal­erie collections, the exhibition analysed the manifesto’s principles to Gabo’s varied arts. The range included pioneering kinetic works, Perspex and ny­lon sculptures, unrealised architectural plans for a high-rise heli­pad and Stalin’s Palace of the Soviets, designs for Sergei Diag­hil­ev’s 1927 ballet La Chatte and sketches for an experimental film.

  

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Naum Gabo

Construction in Depths, 1944

oil paint

Guggenheim

Thank you to the Tate for Gabo's theory bases and images.