Naum Gabo

Gabo studied medicine, natural science, and engineering at the University of Munich. In 1913 he walked from Munich to Florence and Venice, absorbing art and architecture. Early in his life he changed his name to Gabo in order to distinguish himself from his brother, Antoine Pevsner, a painter…

Works.

Works in the Tate collection.

Naum Gabo changed his name from Naum Neemia Pevsner to distinguish himself from his artist brother, Antoine Pevsner. Gabo was born on August 5, 1890, in Briansk, Russia, an area now known as Belarus. He was the son of an executive in a copper refinery. In 1910 he went to Munich to study medicine, but after a year he switched to engineering and physics. While in Munich he attended lectures in art history by the celebrated scholar Heinrich Wölfflin. Gabo met Wassily Kandinsky and was enthusiastic over the exhibitions of the Blaue Reiter group, to which Kandinsky belonged…

Trained as an engineer, rather than an artist, Gabo was one of the first sculptors to make use of semi-transparent materials and to create abstract sculpture that incorporated space in a positive way. During his long life he was associated with numerous styles and schools including: Cubism, Futurism, Bauhaus, Abstraction-Creation, and the St Ives School. He also created countless sculptures, etchings and graphic designs, many of which can be seen at the Tate Gallery, London…

Mathematical Models and Modern Art