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Tate St Ives Exhibition

Naum Gabo

8 July – 13 October 2002

Naum Gabo, Opus 3 1950. Tate. The Work of Naum Gabo © Nina & Graham Williams / Tate, London 2023.

Naum Gabo
Opus 3 (1950)
Tate

The Work of Naum Gabo © Nina & Graham Williams / Tate, London 2023

Naum Gabo (1890–1977) was a Russian constructivist artist, who pioneered new ways of making sculpture from plastic, glass and metals. He started making constructions in Moscow around 1915 with Pevsner, Tatlin, Kandinsky and Malevich. This exhibition is a selected survey of sculptures from the Tate Collection.

A highlight of the exhibition is series of prints Opus 1 -12, made late in Gabo's career, which reflect his artistic concerns in a medium in which he had not previously worked, and are rarely seen as a complete portfolio.

Models and sketches for a number of major works, particularly on the spheric, spiral and kinetic theme are on display. Gabo was one of the earliest artists to experiment with kinetic sculpture and his innovative use of man-made, transparent materials creates a spatial interplay, refracting light and allowing multiple viewpoints.

Also on show is a series of his works in stone, which testify to the diversity of his working practice. These include larger carved sculptures and small found stones in which he inscribed lines and patterns. Gabo came to live in Cornwall shortly after the arrival of Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth in the late 1930s and became one of the towns most influential visiting artists.

Tate St Ives

Porthmeor Beach
St Ives
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Dates

8 July – 13 October 2002

Find out more

  • Naum Gabo, Construction in Space: Two Cones 1936, replica 1968

    Lost Art: Naum Gabo

    Jennifer Mundy

    The Gallery of Lost Art is an immersive, online exhibition that tells the fascinating stories of artworks that have disappeared. Each week a new story of loss is added and the evidence presented for examination

  • A selection of plastics and templates from the Naum Gabo collection

    Gabo Cataloguing Project at the Tate Archive

    Anna McNally

    Anna McNally. Gabo Cataloguing Project at the Tate Archive; Tate Papers no.8

  • Gabo Archives

    A project to catalogue more than sixty boxes of archival material related to the artist Naum Gabo.

  • Organisers of the First Russian Art Exhibition, Berlin.  the foreground is the lost iron version of Gabo’s Constructed Torso 1917.

    Naum Gabo as a Soviet Émigré in Berlin

    Christina Lodder

    Naum Gabo’s arrival in Berlin in 1922, which initiated his lifetime emigration from the Soviet Union, has been interpreted as an explicitly anti-Soviet act. This view has led them to condemn his subsequent creative activities as right-wing and non-progressive. This essay contests such opinions, emphasising Gabo’s connections with the October Revolution, arguing that he did not initially intend to stay in the West, and examining the nature of his émigré activities in this light.

  •  
     

    Naum Gabo: Discovering the Archive

    Art historian Christina Lodder introduces Gabo through his correspondence, writings, sketches and models, followed by a viewing of works in the Prints and Drawings Rooms and an exploration of the Archive.

  • Artist

    Naum Gabo

    1890–1977
  • Artist

    Antoine Pevsner

    1884–1962
  • Artist

    Wassily Kandinsky

    1866–1944
  • Artist

    Kazimir Malevich

    1879–1935
  • Artist

    Ben Nicholson OM

    1894–1982
  • Artist

    Dame Barbara Hepworth

    1903–1975
Artwork
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