- Artist
- Naum Gabo 1890–1977
- Medium
- Plastics (polymethyl methacrylate and nylon thread)
- Dimensions
- Object: 95 × 63 × 60 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Presented by the artist 1977
- Reference
- T02185
Catalogue entry
Naum Gabo 1890-1977T02185 Model for 'Linear Construction No.3 with Red' 1952
Not inscribed
Plastic and nylon thread, 3 3/4 x 2 1/2 x 2 3/8 (9.5 x 5.7 x 6)
Presented by the artist 1977
Exh: Naum Gabo: The Constructive Process, Tate Gallery, November 1976-January 1977 (79)
Lit: A.L. Chanin, 'Gabo makes a Construction' in Art News, LII, November 1953, pp.34-7, 46
The making of the sculpture 'Linear Construction No.3 with Red' 1953 (71cm high) in plastic and nylon threads, with an aluminium base, was the subject of an article by A.L. Chanin in Art News, November 1953. Gabo told Chanin that the first stage in preparing his works was to make a series of pencil sketches to plot the construction from every angle, then to make several small models. Once the final model was done, he would try to enlarge it to the required scale, though this was not a mechanical process which could be carried out by someone else and required intuition and feeling.
There are two photographs on page 36 which show him seated at a worktable with this model T02185 and what appears to be a second, slighter model for the same piece in front of him. The construction itself was begun late in 1952 and took some three months; it is now in the collection of the late Nelson A. Rockefeller, New York. He afterwards made a further version twice the size, with stainless steel springs instead of nylon threads, which belongs to Mrs Miriam Gabo.
Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.257, reproduced p.257
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