Opus One
About this artwork
In 1946 Gabo moved from England to America, settling in Woodbury, Connecticut. A neighbour, William Ivins Jnr., the retired curator of prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, encouraged him to make woodcut prints. Gabo began making monoprints – unique prints made from wood blocks – early in 1950. He made them periodically until about 1975. Although the monoprints were not conceived as a series, in 1976 Gabo selected the twelve most resolved images for inclusion in a portfolio. Gabo died in 1977 and Twelve Monoprinted Wood Engravings, with a text by Michael Mazur, was published posthumously in an edition of twenty sets. Opus One was Gabo’s first monoprint, made in early 1950. It was engraved in the sawn-off leg of a piece of mahogany furniture – a wood not normally used for engraving because it is so hard. There are forty-seven recorded examples of this work.
Published September 2021
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artist:
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title:Opus One
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date created:1950
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materials:Monoprint in black ink on tissue paper
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measurements:28.00 x 20.00 cm (base material size)
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object type:
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credit line:Accepted from Nina Williams under the Cultural Gifts Scheme by HM Government and allocated to Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 2020
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accession number:GMA 5649
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gallery:
Naum Gabo
Naum Gabo
Gabo was born in Russia and trained in Munich as a scientist and engineer. He made his first geometrical constructions while living in Oslo in 1915. Gabo was influenced by scientists who were developing new ways of understanding space, time and matter. He responded to this in his sculpture by using...