Nuam Gabo: A Pioneer of Constructivism

Nuam Gabo - Head No. 2 - 1916, enlarged version 1964 - Steel - Object: 1753 x 1340 x 1226 mm - Tate Gallery, London (click photo for larger image)Constructivist artist Naum Gabo (1890-1977) ( http://www.naum-gabo.com) was born Naum Neemia Pevsner in Russia in 1890. He began making constructed sculpture in Norway in 1915, when he took the name of Gabo. He used materials such as glass, plastic, and metal and created a sense of spatial movement in his work. During the 1920s, Gabo worked with a number of the Bauhaus artist. In later years, curves replaced angles in Gabo’s new spatial constructions, made of taut wire and plastic thread. 

Constructivism was a Russian artistic and architectural movement that was initially influenced by Cubism and Futurism. It is generally considered to have been initiated in 1913 with the “painting reliefs”—abstract geometric constructions—of Vladimir Tatlin. Gabo and his brother, Antoine Pevsner, joined Tatlin and his followers in Moscow, and became spokesmen of the movement. In Constructivism, assorted mechanical objects are combined into abstract mobile structural forms. The movement has influenced many aspects of modern architecture and design.