Naum Gabo as a Soviet migr in Berlin | Tate

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RESEARCH ARTICLES

By Christina Lodder
1 October 2010
Tate Papers Issue 14

Naum Gabos 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 Gabos
connections with the October Revolution, arguing that he did not initially intend to stay in the West, and
examining the nature of his migr activities in this light.

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Gabo cataloguing project

Naum Gabo and the Quandaries of
the Replica
Naum Gabo
Naum Gabo: Discovering the Archive
TateShots: An interview with the
artist Naum Gabo's daughter, Nina
Williams.
Tate Archive 40 | 1993 Naum Gabo
'Childs Play'
Gabo Archives
Gabo Cataloguing Project at the
Tate Archive
Fig.1 Organisers of the First Russian Art Exhibition, Berlin, which opened on 15 October 1922
From left: David Shterenberg, head of IZO, D. Maryanov, representative of the Russian security services, Natan Altman, Naum Gabo and
Friedrich Lutz of the Galerie van Diemen. In the foreground is the lost iron version of Gabos Constructed Torso 1917.
Nina Williams

ARTICLE

There has been a tendency in art-historical scholarship to regard Naum Gabo as a right-wing Russian migr. 1 In part, this
is based on the assumption that an artist who left revolutionary Russia and ended his life in capitalist America during the Cold
War was probably fairly reactionary in politics. Yet from studying the archive of Gabos papers, including his diaries and letters,
and scrutinising the evidence in more detail, a very different and more nuanced ideological picture emerges. 2
As I hope to demonstrate, Gabo was, in fact, a fairly radical figure during the years that he spent in Berlin from 1922 until he
moved to Paris in 19334. Indeed, I shall argue that in Germany, Gabo continued to embrace the attitudes that he had
acquired in revolutionary Russia in that he continued to espouse politically progressive, essentially pro-Soviet attitudes, to
project an explicitly internationalist outlook and to cultivate a wide circle of acquaintance from among a diverse range of
nationalities. Although he was a Russian Jew from a fairly wealthy family, Gabo did not associate exclusively with any
nationalist groupings, whether these were Russian or Jewish. Neither did he become close to any right-wing or reactionary
elements. Instead, he identified with avant-garde elements whatever their nationality German, Russian or Hungarian. At the
same time, Gabo was concerned to establish international links with artists and institutions in France and America.
Gabo probably arrived in Berlin around the beginning of April 1922, and seems to have travelled to Germany in connection
with the organisation of the First Russian Art Exhibition (Erste russische Kunstausstellung). In other words, he came to the
West in a semi-official capacity, and in Berlin, therefore, would almost certainly have been seen as an employee or at least a
representative of the Soviet regime. In one account of his departure, Gabo reported that David Shterenberg, the head of IZO
Narkompros (The Department of Fine Art within the Commissariat of Enlightenment), had told him to go to Berlin, organise
his work and be ready to help him. 3 Gabo may also have received money to finance his journey and stay. 4 When
Shterenberg himself arrived in Berlin six months later, he apparently said to Gabo, now you are here and will join my staff;
[you will be paid] and will organise the three galleries of abstract art. 5 This is borne out by the official photograph, in which
Gabo appears alongside Natan Altman and Shterenberg (the two representatives of IZO), Marianov (an employee of the Soviet

Lost Art: Naum Gabo

This week the Gallery of Lost Art looks
at why both versions of Russian
sculptor Naum Gabos Construction in
Space: Two Cones can no
longer be displayed

RESEARCH ARTICLES

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secret police) and Friedrich Lutz, who was responsible for the van Diemen Gallerys new modern art spaces (fig.1). 6 Gabos
role in the exhibition is also confirmed by the reminiscences of the architect Berthold Lubetkin, who was responsible for
collecting some of the works in Russia and installing them in Berlin. 7
Gabo brought with him from Russia his creative archive the essential ideas that he could work with further (that is, actual
works as well as models, which could be developed or enlarged for sale or exhibition). Indeed, it seems likely that some
works that were on display in 1922 might have been made in Berlin. The advantage of Gabos method of constructing
sculpture from distinct pieces of material was that they could be collapsed, stored flat and so easily transported. He also had
sketch drawings, which contained ideas for new works. Among his papers were some writings (including poems and short
stories in Russian), as well as several copies of the Realistic Manifesto. 8 In other words, Gabo brought with him the
materials that would enable him to continue his creative life and to make his mark as a sculptor in this new environment. He
does not seem, however, to have included photographs of works, documentation like the review of his Tverskoi Boulevard
exhibition in 1920 or any art periodicals.
Thus, the archive suggests that Gabo was not merely envisaging a brief visit to the West like the poets Vladimir Maiakovsky or
Boris Pasternak, but rather was intending to stay for a considerable length of time. On the other hand, there is no evidence
that Gabo was intending to become a permanent migr. There were, for instance, as far as we know, no personal
photographs among his belongings. The photographs of Gabos Russian family among the artists papers seem to have
come later from Alexei once Gabo re-established contact with his brother in Russia in 1959.

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Whatever his original intentions, certain factors may have contributed to prolonging Gabos stay in Germany. Not least was the
fact that he started to live with Elisabeth Richter in early 1923. 9 She took him in and nursed him back to health after he had
fallen seriously ill in spring that year. Gabo and Lisa continued to live together until she died in the late 1920s. With a private
income, Lisa gave Gabo a measure of financial security as well as a settled way of life. They lived in a house in Lichterfelde, a
respectable suburb of Berlin, where Gabo lived as a German, rather than as part of an migr community. The fact that he had
studied medicine, science, philosophy and art history at the University of Munich for four years before the First World War
meant that he had a good grasp of the German language and culture. 10 This was undoubtedly an asset in helping him to
integrate into German life as well as the Berlin art world. It meant that he was not dependent on migr networks for financial
or social support.
Despite his domestic situation, Gabo was probably not contemplating permanent exile at this point. We know from the papers
that Gabo subsequently brought out of Germany in 19334 that he did think about returning to Russia at certain times. In
March 1928, for instance, his brother Alexei Pevsner, who was still living in Russia, wrote describing life in Moscow, the cost
and availability of flats, and the artistic situation, including potential for commissions, in short the sort of information that would
have been solicited by Gabo contemplating a return to his homeland. 11 Two years later, Gabo was evidently thinking about
re-establishing his career in Moscow, and he seems to have been considering going back as late as 1936. 12 Even his
decision to submit a design for the Palace of Soviets Competition in 1931 seems to have been based on an enduring
attachment to his homeland and the desire to create an advantageous niche for his creativity in Russia, preparatory to
his return.
The most revealing indication of Gabos position is the fact that he retained his Soviet passport until 1952, when he finally
relinquished it in order to become an American citizen. 13 This meant that he was free to return to the Soviet Union at any
point. In 1934 Gabo was allowed to renew his Soviet passport in Berlin. He certainly would not have been able to do this if he
had been involved with dubious groups or anything that had a whiff of being anti-Soviet, which would have included any
association with radical political parties, including Communist parties that were not controlled by the Bolsheviks, as well as
any right- wing or pro-Tsarist organisations. 14 So, not only did Gabo continue to consider himself a Soviet citizen, but the
Soviet Union also continued to acknowledge him as a Soviet citizen. In fact, when his daughter Nina was born in 1941, Gabo
registered her at the Soviet Embassy in London, where she was added to his Soviet passport.
When Gabo arrived in Berlin he joined an enormous Russian migr population. Between 1919 and 1923 the city absorbed a
vast wave of emigration. At one point, 1,000 refugees were arriving every month, and by autumn 1920 there were over half a
million Russians in Germany, and over 100,000 of them were living in Berlin. 15 Marc Chagall, who also moved to the city in
1922, recorded his impressions: In the apartments around the Bayerische Platz there seemed to be as many theosophical or
Tolstoyan countesses talking and smoking around a samovar all night as there ever had been in Moscow Never in my life
have I met as many miraculous Hassidic rabbis as in inflationary Berlin, nor such crowds of Constructivists as at the
Romanisches Kaffeehaus. 16
The writer Ilya Ehrenburg remembered how at every step you could hear Russian spoken, 17 and noted Gabos presence at
a memorable debate in late 1922:
There was a place in Berlin that reminded one of Noahs Ark where the clean and unclean met peaceably; it was
called the House of Arts and was just a common German caf where Russian writers gathered on Fridays.
Stories were read by Tolstoy, Remizov, Lidin, Pilnyak, Sokolov-Mitikov. Mayakovskii declaimed. Yesenin, Marina
Tsevetayeva, Andrei Bely, Pasternak, Khodasevich recited poetry A storm broke out at a lecture by the painter
Pougny [Puni]; Alexander Archipenko, Natan Altman, Viktor Shklovskii, Mayakovskii, Gabo, El Lissitzky and I
[Ehrenburg] argued furiously. 18

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Ivan Punis talk on 3 November 1922 had stridently criticised the impersonal character of geometric abstraction, while
praising the more instinctive and personal art of Wassily Kandinsky. 19 It is hardly surprising that Gabo, El Lissitzky and their
circle reacted negatively. Gabo also recalled life in Berlin:
I remember we spent an evening with Elsa Triolet in 1923 in Berlin. Shklovskii Pasternak, and myself. There
was a lot of talk When I left, Pasternak left with me and I thought we would walk a little. But after our first few
steps, Pasternak said Gabo, lend me 5 marks. I took out 5 marks and gave them to him. He quickly put them in
his pocket and ran ahead. I never saw him again. He did not know that they were my last. 20
These various memoirs suggest that Gabo was associating with Russians, but not with so-called white Russians or antiSoviet migrs, whom he referred to derogatively as Balalaika Russians. 21 His friends and acquaintances tended to be
innovative creative figures or members of the avant-garde like Shklovskii and Pasternak (who soon returned to Russia) and El
Lissitzky, rather than more conventional creative figures.
Despite the fact that Gabo was born in the Pale of Settlement and his parents were Jewish, there is no indication that he had
any extensive contacts with Jewish migrs. He did not speak Yiddish the main language of East European Jewry and
had not been brought up knowing even the rudiments of Judaism. He had never even attended a synagogue. 22 At only two
points in his early career had Gabo acknowledged his Jewish identity. The first instance was at the beginning of the First
World War in August 1914, when he was a student fleeing Germany, and he and his brother Aleksei went to a Jewish
organisation in Copenhagen, asking for funds to tide them over before money could reach them from their family in
Russia. 23 The second instance was when Gabo was starving in France in the mid 1930s and he made some
photomontages for ORT the Jewish Organisation for Rehabilitation and Training (fig.2). 24

Fig.2 Naum Gabo

Photomontage for the Jewish Organisation for Rehabilitation through Training, known as ORT
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven
Nina Williams

In Russia, Gabo had clearly identified with the Revolution as an innovative artist. He was at pains to emphasise this in his
subsequent writings and reminiscences. As a young man in the provincial city of Bryansk, he had reacted against social
injustices and embraced the revolutionary cause. His memoirs written mainly in 1970s America confirm his earlier radical
allegiances. He observed: At the beginning of this century, in old Tsarist Russia, it was difficult for anyone born with a human
heart and human feelings not to become a revolutionary. Only ossified blockheads remained insensitive to what was
happening around them the outrageous behaviour, cruelty and oppression of the haves towards the have-nots. 25
Not surprisingly, he reacted positively to news of the February Revolution in 1917 and subsequent developments. He had
spent the years of the First World War in Norway and returning to Russia in spring 1917, he was electrified by the new spirit of
liberty that was pervading the entire society. He later recalled: The Revolution seemed to me to be some kind of heavenly
radiance, a token of fate presaging a new life, a new earth, a new people in my homeland I remembered my youth when the
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image of the Revolution was for me a golden dream The Revolution was in me. 26 During the Second World War in
Britain, when the fate of Europe and Russia seemed to be hanging by a thread, Gabos thoughts were very much directed
towards his homeland and youth. He confided his reminiscences to his diary, including his recollections of the Revolution,
asserting I was one of the hundreds of artists in Moscow possessed by the vision of a new life. 27 This is not a later gloss.
Gabos association with Gustav Klucis serves to confirm this. A member of the Communist Party and a former member of the
crack 9th Latvian Rifles Regiment, who had fought on the side of the revolution, Klucis had impeccable revolutionary
credentials, and had exhibited with Gabo and his brother in August 1920. 28 It is unlikely that Klucis would have done so, had
Gabo expressed anti-Soviet feelings.
Moreover, in his published writings at the time, Gabo also expressed radical affiliations. In the Realistic Manifesto of August
1920, he stressed the relevance of his art to the new social and ideological situation.
On the squares and on the streets we are placing our work convinced that art must not remain a sanctuary for
the idle, a consolation for the weary and the justification for the lazy. Art should attend us everywhere that life
flows and actsat the bench at the table, at work, at rest, at play; on working days and holidays at home and
on the road in order that the flame to live should not extinguish in mankind. 29

Fig.3 Naum Gabo

Column conceived c.1921, this version before 1928, rebuilt 1938
Celluloid, replaced by Perspex, on metal base
Height 270 mm
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven
Nina Williams

A work like Column (fig.3) seems to correspond to such aspirations and to have been conceived as a public sculpture while
Gabo was still in Russia, although the first models were probably executed in Berlin in 1922. Gabo had apparently intended to
have the text of the Soviet Constitution engraved on its sides, so that at night lights would play on the work, illuminating the
text. 30 In this way, the sculpture would have become an effective aesthetic and ideological presence in the city throughout the
day and night. Moreover, as a monument to the Soviet Constitution, with a strong political aspect, it clearly relates to Lenins
Plan of Monumental Propaganda which had been inaugurated in spring 1918. 31
The attitudes, therefore, that Gabo seems to have espoused and demonstrated in his work in Russia appear to be broadly in
line with a revolutionary political ethos. Of course, his innovative aesthetic ideas did not correspond to the kind of art that the
Bolsheviks ultimately wanted to foster within the Soviet Union, any more than the approaches of Kazimir Malevich or Vladimir
Tatlin did. Nevertheless, like other avant-garde figures, Gabo was perfectly willing to co-operate with the revolutionary
authorities and to create art within official frameworks. This situation changed in 1921, when the government, having emerged
victorious in the Civil War, began to take control of the art world and promote a figurative art that could be effectively
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manipulated for propaganda ends. Accordingly, avant-garde artists were removed from arts administration, notably the
Department of Fine Arts (IZO Narkompros), and their influence curbed by restrictions like uniform purchase tariffs. In early
1922 Gabo left Russia, as did many artists eager to see creative developments in the West and to escape the increasing
constrictions on experimentation. Many (including Gabo) may have considered the new measures to be temporary
aberrations rather than permanent features of Soviet cultural life, and criticism of such measures did not necessarily entail
rabid anti-Soviet attitudes.
Indeed, I would suggest that the essentially pro-Soviet, although not uncritical, attitudes that Gabo displayed in Revolutionary
Russia continued to determine his activities in the West. Gabos diary (in the archive in Berlin) which he began to keep in
1929 indicates that he continued to identify with the political left, rather than with the more reactionary factions of the
emigration. 32 In January 1929 he wrote: Rebel. Every day, like a prayer, the artist must repeat this word. It is intolerable to
live amidst the lies, stupidity and meanness of the capitalist world. 33
Yet Gabo remained a relatively marginal figure during the months following his arrival in Germany in spring 1922 and
preceding his public debut in October at The First Russian Art Exhibition. Although his presence coincided with a period of
frantic activity in the creation of a Constructivist movement in the West, Gabo was on the sidelines.
There is, for instance, no record that he was present at the Dsseldorf Congress in May 1922 or at the International Congress
of Constructivists and Dadaists which was held in Weimar the following September and attended by El Lissitzky, Kurt
Schwitters, Tristan Tzara, Theo van Doesburg, Hans Richter, Lszl Moholy-Nagy and others. Gabo was not involved with the
organisation of the International Faction of Constructivists in May 1922, nor was he mentioned in the magazine Object
(Veshch/Gegenstand/Objet) that Lissitzky and Ehrenburg published in two issues in spring and early summer 1922. Indeed,
between spring and October 1922, Gabos work was neither exhibited nor reproduced, with the exception of a single image in
the Hungarian journal Egysg. 34 During this time, Gabo seems to have been living with the artist Natan Altman, another
organiser of the Russian show, whom he had known in Moscow and with whom he bought artistic materials. 35

Fig.4 Naum Gabo

Constructed Head No.2 conceived c.1916
Galvanised iron, originally painted with yellow ochre
Height 450 mm
Private collection
Nina Williams

Gabo may have begun making contacts in the German art world before the opening of the First Russian Art Exhibition on 15
October 1922, but it was the exhibition itself that really launched his career in Germany. Being involved with the shows
organisation was clearly a great advantage. Gabo was able to exhibit nine works (more than most artists) and could thus
present a fairly comprehensive view of his development to date. In addition, two of his sculptures were illustrated in the
catalogue, Head No.2 and Construction in Space: C, which was generous given the limited number of reproductions (figs.4,
5). 36 Equally, Gabo secured a long mention in the catalogue introduction. Indeed, the text about him reads as though he
drafted it himself:
Parallel to the Constructivists stands the sculptor Gabo, whose works revolutionise sculpture in such a way that
it is no longer sculpture in mass but construction. Gabos sculptural system is based on the intersected
diagonal planes of a basic form which produce spatial construction. Thus space is presented as depth. It is
significant that Gabos constructions realise not only the static but also the dynamic, and thus also utilise time
as a new element in art. 37

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The show was a great success, and Gabo was mentioned in many of the reviews. As a result of its prominence in the
exhibition and catalogue, Gabos work aroused considerable interest in Berlin. His contribution was discussed in detail by
several commentators, and most reviews mentioned him by name. 38 Photographs of his sculptures appeared in several
articles: Head No.2 was reproduced in the art magazine Das Kunstblatt and in the Communist publication Hammer and
Sickle. 39 Many of the reviews were enthusiastic. Gabo was described as an original pioneer of a somewhat national stamp
and as an artist who has successfully tackled the problems of three-dimensional spatial construction in a new way and has
developed interesting, if not entirely new solutions. 40 Max Osborn expressed particular excitement: Creative power which
would be able to conquer resides perhaps solely in the sculptor Gabo. His glass sculptures are peculiarly visionary. 41 The
pro-Soviet Russian migr newspaper Nakanune called him a talented constructivist in sculpture with a great future who
was creating completely new sculpture. 42 It particularly praised his glass structures and Kinetic Construction. 43

Fig.5 Naum Gabo

Construction en Creux c.19212
Plastic and wood
Whereabouts unknown
Nina Williams

Gabo may not have occupied centre stage in Russia, but his work certainly made an enormous impact in Berlin, so that
distinctions between him and artists like Malevich, Tatlin, Lissitzky and Alexander Rodchenko tended to be obscured. For the
Germans, they all seemed equally important. To crown this critical success, Gabo sold Construction in Space C (fig.5), and
became acquainted with members of the German avant-garde. He met Hans Richter at the show, who later recalled that
Gabo was, for me, the great sensation at the van Diemen Exhibition I met [him] and we became friends for forty years: 44
I remember well the first impressions of the Unter den Linden exhibition. A huge nude faun in sheet metal
stood in the centre of the first room and a similarly constructed head looked down on the nude. These were
spatial sculptures, that spaced the object from the inside with a bold and sure touch which captivated me
instantly. A man of medium height, strongly built, with a flowing mane and flashing brown eyes introduced
himself as Naum Gabo, creator of these works. He spoke in a highly expressive style. Even after we had
become closely and intimately acquainted with one another, when we took leave of one another, we would go on
talking for hours on the landings, with our voices whether by day or night increasing steadily in volume, until
we were chased away by some resident in need of sleep [Later] his heavy metal sculptures changed into
transparent celluloid panels. In this transparency, the play of space became insightful and many layered. 45
Through Richter, Gabo met Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Hch, Werner Grff, and Kurt Schwitters. Many of these figures had
previously been active within the Dada movement, but they now formed what Lissitzky described as the nucleus of German
Constructivism. 46 Schwitters had been impressed by Gabos work at the 1922 exhibition, and became a particular
friend. 47 Gabo recalled: I met him in the early 1920s in Berlin, when he visited me in Lichterfelde together with Hans
Richter. 48 Their subsequent friendship was commemorated by a Gabo Cave, evidently a phial of his urine, in the Merzbau
which Schwitters created in his Hanover house, one of the many homages to his artist friends. 49 Later Gabo explained:

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We used to take long walks together in the suburbs of Hannover and in the woods. In the midst of the most
animated conversation he would stop suddenly, sunk in deep contemplation One could never guess what
had fascinated him in that insignificant piece of ground. Then he would pick up something which would turn out
to be an old scrap of paper, of a particular texture, or a stamp or a thrown way ticket. He would carefully and
lovingly clean it up and then triumphantly show it to you. Only then would you realise what an exquisite piece of
colour was contained in this ragged scrap. 50
Gabo was also absorbed into the milieu around Richters magazine G: Material zur elementaren Gestaltung, which was
advertised in de Stijl as the organ of the Constructivists in Europe. 51 Lissitzky suggested the title and been involved in
editing the first issue. 52 G was evidently short for Gestaltung which encompasses both the process of organising forms,
or form-making, and the results of that process in design, architecture and art. The journals ideological stance was
expressed in the first issue of July 1923 by a quotation from Marx placed vertically like a banner on page three: Art must not
explain the world, but change it. 53 Gabo supplied Theses from the Realistic Manifesto, Moscow 1920, 54 which
compressed the manifestos argument into four essential points: the importance of life as the starting point for art, the
emphasis on space and time, the rejection of mass and the espousal of kinetic rhythms as a means of expressing time. 22
These reflected the essence of the 1920 document and continued to govern Gabos various activities. He did not contribute to
subsequent issues of G, which concentrated increasingly on architecture and design. Nevertheless, his participation in the
first issue publicly allied him with the radical Constructivist ethos which was emerging in the West. Unlike its Russian
counterpart, this combined a commitment to art, as a symbolic representation of the potential new order, with an engagement
in the more practical task of reconstructing the visual environment.
Yet despite Gabos extensive contacts with avant-garde figures in Germany, he never became a central figure within the
indigenous avant-garde. In this respect, he does not seem to have built effectively on the success generated by the exhibition.
One reason may have been his health. In spring 1923 he caught pneumonia and spent two weeks in hospital. He then
recuperated with Lisa Richter. So in the crucial aftermath of the exhibition, Gabo was effectively out of circulation. Once he was
better, he did try to generate outside interest in his work. In summer 1923, he visited the Bauhaus with Lissitzky, but this did
not result in any commissions for lecturing or teaching for either of them. Evidently, there were few openings at the school as
Moholy-Nagy represented international Constructivism. Gabo did not fare much better in securing shows for his work. He only
exhibited twice in Germany between 1922 and his one-man show in Hannover in 1930. In 1926 he contributed two works to
the Novembergruppe section at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. 55 That June, Rotating Fountain (fig.6) was included in the
remarkable installation of Constructive Art which Lissitzky designed for the International Art Exhibition in Dresden. 56

Naum Gabo, 'Model for 'Rotating Fountain'' 1925, reassembled 1986

Fig.6 Naum Gabo

Model for 'Rotating Fountain' 1925, reassembled 1986
Metal and plastic
object: 440 x 400 x 400 mm
Accepted by HM Government in lieu of tax and allocated to the Tate Gallery 1995The Work of Naum Gabo Nina & Graham Williams/Tate, London
2011

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View the main page for this artwork

Gabo was not impressively productive as a sculptor while he was living in Germany. The dating of the works in the catalogue
of his one-man show in Hannover indicates that in the eight years between the 1922 exhibition and the opening of this show
he had produced at least thirteen new constructions. 57 There may have been more. Some of these seemed to relate quite
closely to the creative concerns that had inspired his work in Russia; others were more relevant to capitalist Germany. Gabo,
for instance, started developing projects for fountains, and a type of public sculpture that would be suitable for the capitalist
environment like Monument for an Airport (fig.7). One of the designs for fountains, Rotating Fountain, was actually
constructed (fig.6).

Naum Gabo, 'Monument for an Airport' circa 1932-48

Fig.7 Naum Gabo

Monument for an Airport circa 1932-48
Perspex and brass
object: 416 x 1080 x 575 mm
Accepted by HM Government in lieu of tax and allocated to the Tate Gallery 1995The Work of Naum Gabo Nina & Graham Williams/Tate, London
2011

View the main page for this artwork

In part, Gabos limited output as a sculptor was related to the fact that he became very involved with architecture and design.
His connection with architects seems to have dated from the First Russian Art Exhibition. He recalled:
Peter Behrens came up to me in the [1922] exhibition and said The whole exhibition is nothing, but your works
mean something to me, they are extraordinary. Could you give a lecture in the Architects Club? I said all right
and gave the lecture. From then on I was with architects all the time. Poelzig was excited by my work. 58

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Fig.8 Naum Gabo

Design for a Multi-storey Car Park 1925
Watercolour, ink and pencil on paper 226 x 402 mm
Berlinische Galerie, Landesmuseum fr Moderne Kunst, Photographie und Architektur, Berlin
Nina Williams

Subsequently, Gabo became involved with several different areas of design. He devised a light show for Berlin; he created a
three-dimensional typeface that was clearly conceived to be used in advertising and he produced various architectural
projects which involved new building types such as airports and car parks (figs.8, 9). Towards the end of the 1920s, he even
gave some lectures at the Bauhaus and wrote about design for the schools journal. 59 This aspect of Gabos activity
culminated in 1931, when he submitted a project for the Palace of Soviets Project (fig.10). Fortunately, he kept photographs of
his design, which remained in his archive. In Russia, his design sunk without trace.

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Fig.9 Naum Gabo

Submitted Design for Palace of Soviets: Plan of Main Hall and Section (sheet 3) 1931
Pencil and india ink on paper 983 x 855 mm
Whereabouts unknown
Nina Williams

Fig.10 Naum Gabo

Sketch for a Tower with an Aircraft Carrier Platform c.1924
Pencil and ink on paper 190 x 263 mm
Berlinische Galerie, Landesmuseum fr Moderne Kunst, Photographie und Architektur, Berlin
Nina Williams

Gabo seems to have enjoyed some success in establishing an international reputation and contacts. After The First Russian
Art Exhibition was shown in Amsterdam, Gabo was invited to Holland to lecture. Ernst Kllai (Ern Kllai) wrote about him in
the Dutch avant-garde journal i.10. 60 In 1924 Gabo and his brother Antoine Pevsner had an exhibition at the Galerie Percier
in Paris, where they were announced as Constructivistes Russes, and Gabo sold several works including Construction en
Creux and a Head No.2. 61 The brothers built on this success by contributing a couple of works, two years running, to the
spring Salon des Indpendants in Paris. 62 In 1924 Gabo showed two works in Vienna. 63 The brothers also exhibited and
sold some works to America. 64 In 1927 they produced the decor and costumes for the Ballet La Chatte for Sergei Diaghilevs
Ballets Russes, which premiered in Monte Carlo, but travelled to Paris, London and elsewhere in Europe.
By the early 1930s Gabo had established his reputation in Germany and elsewhere. Yet in comparison with a figure like
Lissitzky, Gabo was far less prominent and successful. Lissitzky (before he returned to Russia in 1925) occupied a central

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position within the German and international avant-garde. He had attended the Dsseldorf and Weimar congresses; had
helped to set up the International Faction of Constructivists; had published the journal Object (Veshch/Gegenstand/Objet)
with two issues in 1922; had organised several solo exhibitions; had sold many works; had published A Story of Two Squares
and Sieg ber die Sonne (1923); had written for De Stijl; had designed Vladimir Maiakovskys For the Voice (Dlia golosa,
1923); had prepared an issue of Schwitters Merz journal; had lectured at the Bauhaus; and produced numerous
advertisements for commercial organisations like Pelikan ink. 65
The explanation for the difference in the success that Gabo and Lissitzky enjoyed is not linguistic. Both artists spoke German
well. Both had received university educations in Germany prior to the First World War: Lissitzky in Darmstadt and Gabo in
Munich. Both had a good grasp of German culture. Neither had established relations with German artistic circles when they
were students, so in Berlin both artists had to start from scratch building relationships with German creative circles. Both
arrived at the right moment, when interest in Russian developments was at its height and a broadly Constructivist ethos was
emerging. Gabo occupied centre stage in Berlin from October 1922 until spring 1923, but he does not seem to have
capitalised on this. He may have lost momentum because of illness. It could also be argued that he dissipated his energies
in various directions, including developing international links and becoming involved in design. Most importantly, he was a
sculptor; sculpture was a difficult medium for the art market materially intensive, expensive to make, not very portable and
not immediately accessible to an audience.
Yet Gabos achievements while he was in Germany, especially in the latter years, were not inconsiderable, and it is possible
that he might have succeeded in carving out a firmer and a more central niche for himself if Hitler and the Third Reich had not
intervened. As it was, in 19334 Gabo left Germany in stages, taking with him a large archive, which now comprised actual
works, models, sketches of ideas for sculptures, various architectural drawings and designs, including copies of his Plans for
the Palace of Soviets, copies of the Realistic Manifesto, catalogues of his individual and group exhibitions, his published
writings in German; his unpublished writings in Russian and German, including the texts of his various lectures such the text
of his Hannover talk in 1930; diaries and notebooks that he had written in Germany; photographs of a personal nature; letters
from family and friends; and money.
This was now the archive of an artist who was taking his whole life with him. He had perhaps become more resigned to being
an migr. He had not given up the hope of returning to Russia, but by 1933, it was far more likely that he would stay in the
West than that he would return to the Soviet Union. As Stalinism became entrenched, even contact with his family was broken
and the prospect of return became remote. In 1936 a letter to his brother Alexei Pevsner, still in Moscow, was returned with the
inscription refused to be accepted. 66 It was only in 1959 that the brothers found each other again. 67 For over twenty years
Gabo had no idea how his Russian family was living.
In contrast to his experience in Germany, Gabo was much more successful in Britain. Once again he arrived at the right time
as a British Constructivist movement was emerging, and his career was launched through an exhibition. 68 Now, however, he
had established contact with the main protagonists before moving to London, and he immediately became involved in
publishing Circle and thus in a promotion venture that would make his ideas widely accessible, but perhaps most crucial
were the facts that Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore had already made sculpture more central to avant-garde activities in
Britain than the medium was in Germany, and Gabo was now the sole representative of the revolutionary Russian avantgarde in London. 69

Notes

1. See, for instance, Benjamin Buchloh, Cold War Constructivism, in Serge Guilbaut, Reconstructing Modernism, Cambridge, MA 1990, pp.85
112.
2. Most of the biographical and career information in this article is based on Martin Hammer and Christina Lodder, Constructing Modernity: The
Art and Career of NaumGabo, New Haven and London 2000.
3. Frederick Starr and Kenneth Frampton, Russian Art in Revolution and Emigration: An Interview with NaumGabo, typescript in Beinecke Rare
Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, p.15.
4. Ibid., p.15. Gabo crossed out the sentence He opened a drawer and gave me the money: five hundred roubles.
5. Ibid., p.15. Gabo crossed out the phrase in square brackets.
6. See Naum Gabo, The 1922 Soviet Exhibition, Studio International, vol.182, no.938, November 1971, p.171. Gabo identified Marianov as
working for the Cheka, but in February 1922 this organisation was replaced by the State Political Administration (GPU), which shortly
afterwards became the Peoples Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD). For details on Lutz, see Horst Richter, Russische Kunstausstellung,
Die Russen in Berlin/The Russians in Berlin 19101930, exhibition catalogue, Galerie Stolz, Berlin 1995, p.67.
7. See Berthold Lubetkin, letter to Hammer and Lodder, 20 July 1987.
8. Gabo brought at least three copies with him, although there may have been more which have subsequently lost. There is one copy at the
Berlinische Galerie (hereafter Berlin); one in the Whitney Collection at Amherst; and one in the Tate Gallery Archive, London.
9. See Miriam Gabo, Biographical Notes, [1950s1970s], ms and typescript, p.60, Tate; and Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity,
pp.113; 481, fn 95.
10. See Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity, ch.1.
11. Alexsei Pevsner, letter to Gabo, 15 March 1928, Tate Gallery Archive, London.
12. See Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity, ch.1.
13. See Gabos Soviet Passport, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven.
14. y the mid 1920s any association with Tsarist migrs was exceedingly dangerous for Soviet citizens. In 1927, Kazimir Malevich was extremely
anxious when he arrived in Berlin, missed his reception committee, and was taken to a Russian migr boarding house. See Andrzej Turowski,
Malewicz w Warszawe: Rekonstrukcje i Symulacje, Cracow 2002.
15. In autumn 1920 the Russian population of Germany reached 560,000 declining to 250,000 in 1925. See Robert C. Williams, Culture in Exile:
Russian Emigrs in Germany l88ll94l, Ithaca and London l972, pp.11114.
16. Edouard Roditi, Dialogues, London 1990, p.25.
17. Ilya Ehrenburg, Men, Years, Life, 3, London 1963, p.18.

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18. Ehrenburg, Men, Years, Life, p.20. The House of Arts met in an upstairs room at the Caf Leon on Nollendorfplatz and its president was the
Symbolist poet Nikolai Minskii.
19. For Punis lecture, see Hubertus Gassner, Der Text im Kontext, in Iwan Puni: Synthetischer Musiker, Berlin 1992, pp.70105. For the quarrel,
see Russkie za rubezhom. Nerazberikha v Dome Iskusstv, Nakanune, Berlin 1922, vol.1, no.179, p.4.
20. Gabo, notebook, ff.12, Tate.
21. Miriam Gabo, conversation with Hammer and Lodder, July 1987.
22. Ibid.
23. Aleksei Pevsner, Doroga. Po obochine, Moscow 1992, pp.910.
24. The photographs of these photomontages are at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven.
25. Gabo, Autobiography, 1970s, Tate Gallery Archive, London.
26. Gabo, Autobiography, 1970s, Tate Gallery Archive, London.
27. Gabo, Diary, 23 August 1940, Tate Gallery Archive, London.
28. See L. Oginskaya, Gustav Klutsis, Moscow, 1981, p.14; and Aleksei Sidorov, Iskusstvo I zhizn. 2. O novom realizme, Tvorchestvo, Moscow
1920, no.56, pp.323.
29. Naum Gabo and Natan [Antoine] Pevsner, Realisticheskii Manifest, Moscow 1920, reproduced in Gabo: Constructions, Sculpture, Paintings,
Drawings, Engravings, London and Cambridge, MA 1957.
30. Charles Wilson, in conversation with Hammer and Lodder, August 1987.
31. See Christina Lodder, Lenins Plan for Monumental Propaganda in eds., Matthew Collerne Bown and Brandon Taylor, Art of the Soviets:
Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in a One-Party State, 191792, Manchester l993, pp.1632.
32. See Christina Lodder, Lenins Plan for Monumental Propaganda in eds., Matthew Collerne Bown and Brandon Taylor, Art of the Soviets:
Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in a One-Party State, 191792, Manchester l993, pp.1632.
33. See Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity, chapter 7.
34. Realista Kiltvny, Egysg, Vienna 1922, no.2, pp.56, and photograph on p.8.
35. Naum Gabo and Natan Altman, letter to Tristan Tzara, [1922], TZR C 1713, Biliothque Litteraire Jacques Doucet, Paris. Their address was
given as Atelier Hershelt, 13 Rankestrasse, Berlin. The artists apologised for the delay in sending the photographs and requested an issue of
the journal in which they would appear. Clearly, the letter was written in the aftermath of the 1922 exhibition.
36. Chagall and Tatlin were also given two reproductions, but Lissitzky, Malevich and Rodchenko were only allowed a single image each, and the
only artists allotted three illustrations were Shterenberg, Altman and Alexandra Exter.
37. D. Shterenberg, Zur Einfhrung, Erste russische Kunstausstellung, Berlin 1922), pp.1314; English translation in Gabo and Pevsner (1957),
p.155, where Gabo identified the author as David Shterenberg. Translation here is authors own.
38. For an almost full list of the reviews of the 1922 show see Stationen der Moderne: Die bedeutenden Kunstausstellungen des 20. Jahrhunderts
in Deutschland, Berlin 1988, p.196.
39. See P. Westheim, Die Ausstellung der Russen, Das Kunstblatt, no.11, 1922, p.495; and Arthur Holitscher, Erste Russische Kunstausstellung
in Berlin: Revolutionre Kunst und Kunst der Revolution, Sichel und Hammer, no.1, 1922, p.10, reproduced in Klaus Kndler, Helga
Karolewski, and Ilse Siebert (eds.), Berliner Begegnungen: Auslndische Knstler in Berlin 1918 bis 1933: Aufstze Bilder Dokumente,
Berlin 1987, p.66.
40. Curt Bauer, Die Erste Russische Kunstausstellung, Der Cicerone, 1922, p.869; and Alfred Kuhn, Die Erste Russische Kunstausstellung in
Berlin, Kunstchronik und Kunstmarkt, no.6, 1922, p.11.
41. Max Osborn, Russische Kunstausstellung, Vossische Zeitung, Evening Edition, 16 October 1922.
42. Dmitriev, Pervaya russkaya khudzohestvennaya vystavka v Berline, Nakanune, Berlin 1922, no.163, p.5.
43. R. Pashennyi, Russkaya vystavka v Berline, Nakanune: Literaturnoe prilozhenie, no.25, 1922, p.11.
44. Cleve Gray ed.), Hans Richter by Hans Richter, New York 1971, p.56.
45. Hans Richter, Kpfe und Hinterkpfe, Zurich 1967, pp.978. Present translation adapted from the extract in Die Russen in Berlin, p.38.
46. Sophie Lissitzky-Kppers, El Lissitzky: Life, Letters, Texts, London 1968, p.26. She relates how Lissitzky, Hausmann and othes used to meet at
the Romanisches Caf or in Moholy-Nagys studio. See also John Willett, The New Sobriety: Art and Politics in the Weimar Period 191733,
London 1978, p.76; and Dawn Ades Dada-Constructivism, Dada-Constructivism, London 1984, pp.3445.
47. Willett, The New Sobriety, pp.789.
48. Naum Gabo, carbon of letter to Dr Werner Schmalenbach, 18 May 1960, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New
Haven.
49. Kate Steinitz, Kurt Schwitters: A Portrait fromLife, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1968, p.90. Gabo told Sir Norman Reid about the contents of
the Gabo cave (Reid, conversation with Hammer and Lodder, April 1995).
50. Naum Gabo, untitled text, in Kurt Schwitters, New York 1948. Gabo owned two collages by Schwitters.
51. Stephen Bann, Tradition of Constructivism, London 1974, p.xxxiii.
52. Richter, Kpfe und Hinterkpfe, p.69.
53. G, no.1, p.3.
54. Gabo and Pevsner, Thesen aus dem realistischen Manifest Moskau 1920, G, no.1, July 1923, p.4.
55. Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung, Berlin 1926, p.103, nos.15356.
56. See Lissitzky-Kppers, El Lissitzky, plates 1878
57. Gabo: Konstruktive Plastik, 623 November 1930, exhibition catalogue, Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover, nos. 58, 10, 1521, 13 as a photo.
See also Colin Sanderson and Christina Lodder, Catalogue Raisonn of the Constructions and Sculptures of Naum Gabo, in eds., S. Nash
and J. Merkert, NaumGabo: Sixty Years of Constructivism, Munich l985, nos.2.2, 3.2, 9.1, 10.2, 15, 17, 20.2, 22.3, 23.2, 25, 26.2, 29.2, 31.1,
and 31.2.
58. Starr and Frampton, Russian Art, p.16.
59. Naum Gabo, Gestaltung?, Bauhaus, Dessau 1928, vol.2, no.4, pp.26
60. Ernst Kllai, Der Plastiker Gabo, i10, Amsterdam 1927, vol.1, no.7, pp. 24550.
61. See Constructivistes Russes Gabo et Pevsner: Peintures, Sculptures, Paris 1924.
62. Socit des Artistes Indpendants: Catalogue de la 36e exposition, Paris 1925, nos.12767; and Socit des Artistes Indpendants:
Catalogue de la 37e exposition, Paris 1926, nos.13034.
63. Internationale Kunstausstellung, Vienna 1924, nos.149, 150.
64. Gabo and Pevsner: Russian Constructionists, New York 1926, nos.15; Machine-Age Exposition: Catalogue, New York 1927, p.28, nos.360
1;An International Exhibition of Modern Art, Assembled by the Socit Anonyme, New York, Buffalo, Toronto 1927.
65. For details, see Lissitzky-Kppers, El Lissitzky.
66. See Gabo, carbon of letter to Senya and Mollie Flechine, 8 November 1964, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University,
New Haven.
67. See Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity, chapter.15.
68. Abstract and Concrete, London 1936.
69. Berthold Lubetkin was also in Britain, but he had not been a member of the Russian avant-garde during the revolutionary period, and only
became a creative figure after his emigration to the West.

Acknowledgements
This paper is a version of a talk given at Emigr Artists and their Archives: Naum Gabo and his Contemporaries, a
conference held at Tate Britain in November 2009.

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Christina Lodder is Professorial Fellow at the University of Edinburgh.

Tate Papers Autumn 2010 Christina Lodder
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