7 - Naum Gabo

Naum Gabo (Bryansk 1890 – 1977 Waterbury), “Study for a Tower Fountain,” 1924, pencil on yellowish vélin, monogrammed and dated lower left, 20.5 x 20.5 cm, mounted under glass with a mat in a simple wooden frame, overall dimensions: 44.5 x 42.5 cm. Limit 3,600 Exhibitions: - “Abstraction 1910–1940,” Annely Juda Gallery, London, 1980, cat. no. 57. - “Naum Gabo: The Constructive Idea,” Arts Council, Hayward Gallery, London, 1987, cat. no. 60. - “Naum Gabo: The Constructive Idea,” Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1987–88, cat. no. 60. - "Naum Gabo: The Constructive Idea," Hatton Gallery, Newcastle, 1988, cat. no. 60. - "Naum Gabo: The Constructive Idea," Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, 1988, cat. no. 60. - “Naum Gabo: The Constructive Idea,” City Art Gallery, Manchester, 1988, cat. no. 60. - “Naum Gabo: The Constructive Idea,” City Art Gallery, Birmingham, 1988, cat. no. 60. - “Naum Gabo: The Constructive Idea,” Art Gallery & Museum, Glasgow, 1988, cat. no. 60. - “Naum Gabo,” Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1988, cat. no. 98. - "Naum Gabo—Centennial Exhibition," Annely Juda Gallery, London, 1990, cat. no. 54. - "The Non-Objective World," Hayward Gallery, London, 1992–93, cat. no. 10. Provenance: - Artist’s estate - Collection of Nina Serafima Williams (the artist’s daughter), until 1994. - Annely Juda Fine Art, 23 Dering Street, London W1R During his time in Berlin in the mid-1920s, Gabo received a private commission to design a fountain sculpture for the garden of a modern house in Dresden. Gabo’s revolutionary idea was to fuse the movement of water with the mathematical lines of a transparent sculpture into a single entity. The physical model was based directly on the sweeping curves of this sketch. It was conceived as a delicate structure and was intended to rotate mechanically while spraying fine jets of water. After the National Socialists seized power, the constructivist avant-garde immediately came under the regime’s scrutiny. Gabo, who was of Jewish descent, was forced to flee Germany. His modern, abstract spatial constructions were deemed “degenerate.” It is believed that the Dresden fountain design was either deliberately dismantled, damaged, or removed from public view during this period.