Naum Gabo
Georges Vantongerloo
Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart
Works on Paper

25 October - 15 December 2001


This exhibition brings together for the first time in this country more than ninety works by three leading abstract avant garde artists of the Twentieth Century. Georges Vantongerloo was born in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1886 and became a prominent member of the De Stijl group in nearby Holland where he evolved his work within the strict rules of neo-plasticism. The sculptor Naum Gabo was born four years later in 1890 in Briansk, Russia. Gabo not only pioneered and developed Constructivist sculpture but was also an excellent draughtsman. His drawings reveal much of the subtle thought process and analysis that lie behind his radical sculpture.

Both Georges Vantongerloo and Naum Gabo were in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s and it was there that they came into contact with the younger Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart (born 1899) from Hanover, Germany. All three innovative artists became members of the artistsÕ group Abstraction - Crˇation which Vantongerloo founded with others in 1931. Vordemberge-Gildewart was also a member of the De Stijl group and his pure abstract paintings were some of the most elemental produced. Exploring variations of a theme was a constant process in his work and this approach is particularly visible in his drawings which show the emergence of his pictorial language.

This important exhibition invites revealing comparisons of the drawings and works on paper between these three pioneer avant garde artists of the Twentieth Century.