Naum Gabo

Opus Four

About this artwork

Gabo’s first five monoprints were made within a few months of each other early in 1950. Opus Four was engraved in cherry wood. Instead of treating the image as a sculptural form which occupies the centre of the print, here he inked up the entire surface so that the image and its surrounding space have equal weight. This was an approach which Gabo constantly spoke of, in relation to his sculpture: that the space around a sculpture was as important as the sculpture itself. The National Galleries of Scotland collection includes another example of Opus Four,where the image is the other way around. There are thirty-two examples of this work, some of them, like this one, reversed.

Updated 2021

  • artist:
    Naum Gabo (1890 - 1977) RussianAmerican
  • title:
    Opus Four
  • date created:
    1950
  • materials:
    Monoprint in black ink on oriental paper
  • measurements:
    15.90 x 13.70 cm (image size); 28.10 x 19.80 cm (base material size)
  • object type:
  • credit line:
    Accepted from Nina Williams under the Cultural Gifts Scheme by HM Government and allocated to Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 2020
  • accession number:
    GMA 5653
  • gallery:
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Naum Gabo

Naum Gabo