Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.


Naum Gabo artist

Naum Gabo was born into a Jewish family in Bryansk, Russian Empire in 1890 and lived and worked as a constructivist sculptor between Berlin and Paris from 1922, until he fled to Britain to escape Nazi persecution in 1936. He lived first in London, and later in Cornwall, mixing in modernist circles and editing the <em>Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art</em> (1937), also discovering the new transparent material of perspex, which he explored in his sculpture, prior to his departure for the USA in 1946, where he spent the rest of his life and career.

Born: 1890 Bryansk, Russian Empire (now Russia)

Died: 1977 Waterbury, Connecticut, USA

Year of Migration to the UK: 1936

Other name/s: Naum Neemia Pevsner, Neyemiya Borisovich Pevzner


Biography

Constructivist art pioneer Naum Gabo was born Neyemiya Borisovich Pevzner into a Jewish family in Bryansk, Russia, on 5 August 1890, although he had a Russian Orthodox nanny and, like the offspring of many other assimilated families, was baptised. His older brother was fellow Constructivist artist Antoine Pevsner and Gabo changed his name, while in Norway in 1915, in order to avoid confusion between them. It was in Norway that he began to make constructed sculpture, but he returned to Russia at the time of the October revolution in 1917. In 1920 Gabo wrote The Realistic Manifesto, an expression of the aims and philosophy behind his art and two years later he left Russia for Berlin to exhibit in The First Russian Art Exhibition at the Van Diemen Gallery. He did not return to Russia until 1962, remaining in Berlin, where he made constructed sculptures, carried out a number of architectural projects and made contact with the Bauhaus school and the De Stijl group. In 1932, he left Germany for Paris, where he remained until 1935. In Paris, Gabo exhibited with the Abstraction-Création group, before moving to England in 1936.

In 1936 he met and married the painter Miriam Franklin (née Israels, 1907–1993). During his time in England, Gabo mixed in modernist circles with the critic Herbert Read, abstract artists including Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth, and the architect Leslie Martin, as well as with fellow émigrés. He edited the Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art (1937) with Leslie Martin and Ben Nicholson, discovered the new transparent material of perspex, which he explored in his sculpture, and exhibited and sold many sculptures. In 1938 he visited the USA, where he also exhibited, but returned to England and spent the war years in Cornwall, where his daughter, Nina, was born. He also wrote articles, kept a diary and made a series of paintings. After seven years in England, the family left to settle permanently in the USA in 1946.

Gabo exhibited widely in both the USA and Europe, and lectured at Yale, Harvard, and in Chicago. He took American citizenship in 1952, taught at the Harvard University Graduate School of Architecture (1953–54) and delivered the A. W. Mellon Lectures in 1959 in Washington DC. He completed a number of large-scale commissions including a 25-metre high freestanding sculpture for the Bijenkorf Building in Rotterdam. In 1971 Gabo was awarded an Honorary KBE by Queen Elizabeth ll. He continued to receive honours, prizes, commissions and international recognition until the end of his life. He died in Connecticut, USA on 23 August 1977. His work is represented in UK public collections including the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham, the Ben Uri Collection, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, Leeds City Art Gallery, the National Galleries of Scotland, the Pier Arts Centre, and the Tate.

Related books

  • Peter Wakelin, Refuge and Renewal: Migration and British Art (Bristol: Sansom and Company, 2019)
  • Jutta Vinzent, From Space in Modern Art to a Spatial Art History. Reassessing Constructivism through the Publication Circle (1937) (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2020)
  • Naum Gabo: Gabo's Stones (London: Annely Juda Fine Art, 2014)
  • Natalia Sidlina, Naum Gabo (London: Tate Publishing, 2012)
  • Emma Chambers, 'Refugees from Nazi Europe' in Lizzy Carey-Thomas ed, Migrations: Journeys into British Art (London, Tate Publishing, 2012), p. 62-63
  • Christina Lodder, 'Naum Gabo as a Soviet Emigré in Berlin', Tate Papers No. 4, Autumn 2010
  • Jutta Vinzent, Identity and Image: Refugee Artists from Nazi Germany in Britain (1933–1945) (Kromsdorf/Weimar: VDG Verlag, 2006)
  • Michael Harrison ed., Gabo and Colour (London: Annely Juda Fine Art, 2004)
  • Naum Gabo, Georges Vantongerloo, Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildeward: Works on Paper (London: Annely Juda Fine Art, 2001)
  • Martin Hammer and Christina Lodder, Gabo on Gabo: Texts and Interviews (Forest Row: Artists Bookworks, 2001)
  • Martin Hammer and Christina Lodder, Constructing Modernity: The Art and Career of Naum Gabo (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000)
  • Manuel Corrada, 'On Some Vistas Disclosed by Mathematics to the Russian Avant-Garde: Geometry, El Lissitzky and Gabo', Leonardo, Vol. 25, Visual Mathematics: Special Double Issue, No. 3/4, 1992, pp. 377-384
  • Naum Gabo: Monoprints (London: Waddington Galleries, 1990)
  • Naum Gabo: The Constructive Idea. Sculpture, Drawing, Paintings, Monoprints (London: South Bank Centre, 1987)
  • Steven A. Nash ed., Naum Gabo: Sixty Years of Construction (London: Tate Gallery Publications, 1987)
  • Susanne Hilberry, 'Naum Gabo, A Constructivist Sculptor', Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts, Vol. 54, No. 4, 1976, pp. 174-183
  • Naum Gabo (Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum, 1965)
  • Antoine Pevsner, A Biographical Sketch of My Brothers Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner (Amsterdam: Augustin & Schoonman, 1964)
  • Gabo: Constructions, Sculpture, Paintings, Drawings and Engravings (London: Lund Humphries, 1957)
  • Ruth Olson, Abraham Chanin and Herbert Read, eds., Naum Gabo, Antoine Pevsner (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1948)
  • Catalogue of Constructions by N. Gabo (London: London Gallery, Cork Street, 1937)
  • John Leslie Martin, Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo eds., Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art (London: Faber & Faber, 1937)

Public collections

Related organisations

  • Abstraction-Création group (member and exhibitor)
  • Bauhaus (associated)
  • Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art (editor)
  • De Stijl (associated)

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • Naum Gabo, Tate St Ives, England (2020)
  • Naum Gabo. Spatial Impressions, Cristea Roberts Gallery, London (2020)
  • Gabo's Monoprints. A Family Collection, Alan Cristea Gallery, London (2016)
  • Naum Gabo: Gabo's Stones, Annely Juda Fine Art, London (2014)
  • Naum Gabo. Woodcut Monoprints, Alan Cristea Gallery, London (2006)
  • Gabo and Colour, Annely Juda Fine Art, London (2003)
  • Naum Gabo, Tate St Ives (2002)
  • Naum Gabo Georges Vantongerloo and Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart: Works on Paper, Annely Juda Fine Art, London (2001)
  • Naum Gabo, Annely Juda Fine Art, London (1999)
  • Naum Gabo: The Constructive Idea: Sculpture, Drawings, Paintings, Monoprints, South Bank Gallery, London (touring exhibition Oxford, Newcastle, Hull, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow) (1987)
  • Naum Gabo: Drawings, Annely Juda Fine Art, London (1987)
  • Naum Gabo: The Constructive Process, Tate Gallery, London (1976)
  • Naum Gabo: Constructions Paintings and Drawings, Tate Gallery, London (1966)
  Naum Gabo
   
Ben Uri collection

Naum Gabo in the Ben Uri collection

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Naum Gabo]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Naum Gabo] in the Ben Uri Library