Naum Gabo

Studio of the artist (until at least 1948)

(probably) Owen Franklin

Winifred Dacre Nicholson (wife of Ben Nicholson)

Harold Diamond, New York

Rose Fried Gallery, New York

Herbert & Nannette Rothschild, New York (by 1958)

Judith Rothschild, New York (by descent from the above)

Providence, Brown University Art Museum, Herbert and Nannette Rothschild, an exhibition in celebration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of Pembroke College in Brown University, 1966, no. 46

Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art & Philadelphia Museum of Art, Encounters with Modern Art, 1996-97, no. 21, illustrated in color in the catalogue

"Gabo and Pevsner and Constructive Realism," XXe Siècle, Paris, 1939, no. 5/6, illustrated p. 46 (as dating from 1938)

Hebert Read & Leslie Martin, Naum Gabo, Switzerland, 1961, illustrated pl. 50

The sculpture is constructed from stone, black plastic bands and a white plastic disc. There is an old, repaired crack in the white plastic area and the black bands are held into place with glue. Over all, this work is in good condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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The Russian artist Naum Gabo (born Naum Pevsner) sought to incorporate elements of time, space and movement within his sculpture.  The present work from 1933 exemplifies this aesthetic pursuit with its interplay of lines and rhythmic dimension.  Having studied medicine, engineering and natural sciences in Munich before World War I and encounternig Cubism in Paris in 1912-13, Gabo based his art on principles of physics and translated them into avant-garde compositions.  Gabo returned to Russia in 1913, where he and his brother Antoine Pevsner formed an association with a group of progressive architects, engineers and artists.  The tenets of Gabo's artistic beliefs were stated in his 'Realistic Manifesto,' which he wrote in 1920 and posted at an exhibition in Moscow at the time.  In that treatise, Gabo proclaimed, "the elements of art have their basis in a dynamic rhythm," and this was the guiding principle throughout his career.

"The artist's spirit will survive if he acquires the capacity for universalism. This means that the person behind the work must disappear," Gabo once said about his art.  "I don't want people to see Gabo behind my work. I want them to see just the work. What I am driving at is to make the work an image, so that the image itself should be distinct for the beholder, for whoever sees it. It should be so organic that you forget the person responsible for it" (quoted in Studio International, April 1966, p. 130).  Writing about Construction: Stone with a Collar in the 1997 exhibition catalogue, Innis H. Shoemaker has remarked that this sculpture "typifies Gabo's central concern in the 1930s with the interplay of flowing linear rhythms rather than transparent planes of his earlier works.  The merging lines and shapes of stone, slate, and plastic produce a sense of continuous movement held in perfect balance" (I.H. Shoemaker, op. cit.,  p. 146).