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Art of the 20th Century
Naum Gabo
Naum Gabo
(b Klimovichi, Belarus, 5 Aug 1890; d Waterbury, CT, 23 Aug 1977).
American sculptor of Belorussian birth. He was brought up in the Russian town of Bryansk, where his father owned a metallurgy business. Early paintings display his romantic and literary spirit, for example Self-portrait (c. 1907–10), but in 1910 he went to the University of Munich to study medical and scientific subjects (1910–12), then philosophy and history of art (1912–14). The lectures of Heinrich Wölfflin and the writings of Henri Bergson were significant influences on him at this time. Gabo also studied engineering at the Technische Hochschule, Munich (1912–14), where there was a large collection of mathematical models. During World War I he took refuge in Norway (1914–17) and started working with his ‘stereometric method’ of construction, one of several techniques he adopted from such models, and through which he made a significant contribution to the development of the language of Constructivism. This enabled him to make images from sheet materials such as cardboard, plywood and galvanized iron, incorporating space in the body of the work and thereby denying the solidity of matter. Around this time he adopted the surname Gabo to distinguish himself from his brother, the artist ANTOINE PEVSNER.
