From Space in Modern Art to a Spatial Art History: Reassessing Constructivism through the Publication "Circle" (1937) 9783110595338, 9783110594935

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Jutta Vinzent From Space in Modern Art to a Spatial Art History

SpatioTemporality / RaumZeitlichkeit

Practices – Concepts – Media / Praktiken – Konzepte – Medien Edited by / Herausgegeben von Sebastian Dorsch, Bärbel Frischmann, Holt Meyer, Susanne Rau, Sabine Schmolinsky, Katharina Waldner Editorial Board Jean-Marc Besse (Centre national de la recherche scientifique de Paris), Petr Bílek (Univerzita Karlova, Praha), Fraya Frehse (Universidade de São Paulo), Harry Maier (Vancouver School of Theology), Elisabeth Millán (De-Paul University, Chicago), Simona Slanicka (Universität Bern ), Jutta Vinzent (University of Birmingham), Guillermo Zermeño (Colegio de México)

Volume / Band 6

Jutta Vinzent

From Space in Modern Art to a Spatial Art History Reassessing Constructivism through the Publication Circle (1937)

ISBN: 978-3-11-059493-5 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-059533-8 e- ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-059273-3 ISSN 2365-3221 Library of Congress Control Number: 2019949323 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Naum Gabo, Two Cubes, reproduced in: Naum Gabo, Leslie Martin and Ben Nicholson (eds), Circle. International Survey of Constructive Art, London: Faber and Faber, 1937, 103 © Nina and Graham Williams Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Acknowledgements Most of this book was written during a Fellowship at the Max Weber Centre at Erfurt, and I am very grateful not only for its financial support, but also for its outstanding research community culture consisting of research seminars and investigative, constructive thinkers without which crucial aspects of this book, particularly regarding the methodology, would have been impossible to develop. In Erfurt, I have further benefited from the Erfurt Spatio-Temporal Studies (https:// www.uni-erfurt.de/philosophische-fakultaet/raumzeit-forschung/), with which I was able to convene three workshops on spatio-temporality together with Dr. Sebastian Dorsch. This research has been published as edited books titled Performing Bodies and SpatioTemporalities on the Line, the latter in the same series as this book appears, namely the series of the study centre concentrating on Spatio-Temporal Studies.¹ This study centre has also provided financial support without which this book would have not been able to get in print. I am also indebted to my students at the University of Birmingham, as the idea to this book crystallised when designing and teaching the introductory module ‘Modernism’, where very able students inspired me with their own divers and exciting work. I am also grateful to my former PhD students, particularly Dr Richenda Roberts, who read parts of this book, and Dr. Imogen Wiltshire, who enlightened me in view of Latour. Towards the end of writing this book, I received invaluable insights and constructive feedback from my colleagues at the University of Birmingham, particularly Dr. Sophie Hatchwell and Professor Sara Jones. I am also grateful to the anonymous peer-reviewer of the series in which this book appears, to Linda Finnigan for proof-reading the final manuscript and to the editors at DeGruyter. All began with a paper written for a symposium on Gabo and emigration organised by Tate Research in 2009.² The paper formed the nucleus of the book. Parts of chapters were tried out at conferences. I participated in a session at the 2012 conference of the College Art Association (CAA) with a paper published as ‘Challenging the Abstract in Late 1930s Britain’ that forms now part of the

 Appears, namely See Jutta Vinzent and Christopher M. Wojtulewicz (eds.), Performing Bodies. Time and Space in Meister Eckhart and Taery Kim, Leuven: Peeters, 2016 and Sebastian Dorsch and Jutta Vinzent (eds.), Spatiotemporalities on the Line. Representations—Practices—Dynamics, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2017. Both books contain own contributions.  Jutta Vinzent, Émigré Artists and Their Archives: Naum Gabo and his Contemporaries, 30 Nov. 2009, unpublished, symposium organised by Tate Research, supported by the Getty Foundation and held at Tate Britain, London. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110595338-001

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third chapter.³ A further one was based around the string sculptures by Gabo, Hepworth and Moore, now analysed with new insights, also in the third chapter.⁴ Despite having been occupied with and published on the topic of space for nearly ten years, this book is new in light of its proposed and probed methodology unavailable in any of the other publications. It should not be concluded from this that the book is comprehensive—it should be rather understood as a stepping stone for further discussions.

 See Jutta Vinzent, ‘Challenging the Abstract in Late 1930s Britain,’ in: Mendelson (ed.), Encounters with the 1930s, exhibition catalogue, Madrid: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 3 Oct. 2012 to 7 Jan. 2013, 140 – 7.  See Jutta Vinzent, ‘Space and Form in String Sculptures: Naum Gabo, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore,’ in: Aurenhammer and Prange (eds.), Das Problem der Form. Interferenzen zwischen moderner Kunst und Kunstwissenschaft, Berlin: Gebrüder Mann Verlag, 2016, 355 – 81.

Contents 

Introduction: Circle, Space and a Spatial Art History



Associations between the Planning, Publication and Reception of 38 Circle Forming the Idea for Circle 41 51 Planning Circle The Final Publication Circle, Direct Responses and the Relevance 86 of Space as Topic Concluding Remarks: Art Publishing and Social Network 92

. . . .  . . . .  . .

Spatial Concepts in Circle and Beyond 95 Naum Gabo: Space as Material and the Role of 97 Constructions Barbara Hepworth: Carvings and Constructions 134 Herbert Read: Space in the Aesthetic Perception and Conception 146 of Art Works Concluding Remarks: Constructive Ideas of Space 181 187 Outlook Spatial Art History as Spatial Practice under Review Relating Spatial Concepts to the Spatial Turn and to 193 Modernism

Bibliography

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List of Illustrations Index

1

225

223

187

1 Introduction: Circle, Space and a Spatial Art History This book focuses on spatial theories and practices in the first half of the twentieth century. Taking the richly illustrated publication Circle—edited by Naum Gabo, Ben Nicholson and Leslie Martin with written contributions from Marcel Breuer, Le Corbusier, Maxwell Fry, Sigfried Giedion, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, László Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Read and Jan Tschichold – as a springboard for avant-garde views on space, it argues that spatial theories and practices played a significant role in modernism, particularly in constructive and constructivist art.¹ On the basis of such theories and practices that have been developed against a space understood as closed to resist a Kantian a priori idea of space, and in combination with recent theories which conceive of space as neither simply geography nor an empty container but as being produced by subjects (Henri Lefebvre, Edward Soja and the Spatial Turn), the book suggests and probes a new methodology termed Spatial Art History that takes into account constructive and social aspects in the analysis of things, defined in the widest sense as anything that can be exchanged, including art objects and written material.² It thereby understands the relationship between things and social life (in the form of relationships) as correlative and reciprocal, producing each other. The methodology is further enriched by (actor‐) network theories that understand not only the relationships between things and the social as associations, but assume things are related to other things in a network. Things and human beings are actors. It thereby does not understand networks primarily as a challenge to notions of placing art works geographically and politically as fixed, such as for example, brought forward by Thomas Dacosta Kaufmann’s influential book Toward a Geography of Art (2004),³ but rather as a way of describing how art works, ideas and human beings are related to each other, namely by associations that are assumed as infinite. Inspired by Bruno Latour, these associations are characterised by a distancing, by a spacing of things to each other (rather than a placing) and of things in relation to people, being further away or closer to each other, denser or lighter, critiquing strict linearity, originality and one-di-

 See Naum Gabo, Leslie Martin and Ben Nicholson (eds.), Circle. International Survey of Constructive Art, London: Faber and Faber, 1937.  To mark the specific meaning of ‘thing’ as different from the conventional use of the word, the terms is given in italics throughout.  See Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Toward a Geography of Art. Chicago, Ill.; London: University of Chicago Press, 2004. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110595338-002

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mensionality that accepts only cause-effect relationships and assumes of originality as singularity. In view of artists and artworks, this means that the methodology does not conceive of the artist as genius who directs materials and objects without the assumption of their transformation, nor of art works which determine all possibilities of the artist, nor of artists who imagine an artwork ready to be and then create without considering the possibility of processual changes. Hence this book’s methodology focuses on the exchange of ideas of space in writing, the circulation and dissemination through publications, and the relationships between art works and producers (both as artists and as viewers of art works). As the title suggests, this introduction begins with a literature review on space in modern art (as a concept) and moves on to developing a Spatial Art History. Therefore, if the readers are primarily interested in the spatial methodology, they should skip chapter parts 1.1 and 1.2, sections which have been written particularly for those interested in Constructivism and the publication Circle, and continue reading sections 1.3 (especially the part titled ‘correlative and volumised’) and 4.1.

1.1 Significance and Aims in View of Constructivism and Circle The debate around Constructivism, abstract and constructive art in 1930s Britain is arguably epitomised in Circle subtitled ‘International Survey of Constructive Art’ and published in 1937. Edited by the architect Leslie Martin, the painter Ben Nicholson and the sculptor Naum Gabo, Circle brought together these like-minded British artists and refugee from Nazism; contributors included the sculptors Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, the Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius and the Neo-Plasticist Piet Mondrian and, as already mentioned above, a large number of avant-gardists from across the so-called West, namely Europe and North America, stretching its reach to locations beyond the metropolises of Berlin, Paris and London to places such as cities in Scandinavia, Poland and Malta, which are rather under-researched in light of modern art. Although not being global or crossing colonial and imperial borders beyond the West, investigating this range of entangled network formed around Circle concentrates and widens the view of what has been considered so far as the centres of the avant-garde and of the west in geographical and ideological terms. It will further show exactly how these ideas travelled and how social relations were formed by an exchange of theories and practices. This book takes its starting-point from an edited publication that per se consists of relationships between contributions authored by a number of people. It focuses on the spatial concepts formulated in Circle, exploring their central role

1.2 Literature Review

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in the shaping of modernism beyond 1930s Britain, as the book brings to the fore a network of internationally renowned artists and those interested in the contemporary context. It will thus introduce the different ideas and visual representations of space for the first time and contribute to a fuller understandings of modern sculpture, painting, exhibitions and art theory at a time when London was considered a central site for modernism for a short period, after first Berlin and then Paris became unsafe because of the spreading of National Socialism and before the art centre moved to New York. The focus on spatiality will also advance theoretical understanding of space and cast a fresh light on the established artists, showing that questions of space occupied much of modernist minds. This space is different from that which concerned the central perspective and the efforts of modern artists until the Cubists and Futurists who critiqued it. It is likewise different from spatial concerns that installation art raised in the 1960s, namely the ‘real’ space of the spectator. In the first half of the twentieth century, there were artists defining space that has variously been described as space-time, infinite, illusionary and constructive. And it is this kind of space, with its differing attitudes, with which this book is concerned, because it allows a comparison to the spatial concepts developed as part of theories and methodologies related to the Spatial Turn. Based on previous scholarship on Constructivism and constructive art, this book expands the knowledge of abstract, constructive and constructivist art by providing a perspective that puts to the fore the associations and networks of theories and practices created by publications, namely by text and illustrations. Such focus help us see movements and groups in a system marked by social relations that not only form a context or cultural field, but are produced and transformed through the exchange of ideas and practices.

1.2 Literature Review The central focus of this book, the publication Circle, has received scholarly attention in a number of publications but only in one monograph, namely a catalogue accompanying an exhibition held at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, in 1982.⁴ Edited by Jeremy Lewison, its contributions focus on Circle’s themes of architecture, art and life and mention the collaboration between émigrés and artists from

 See Jeremy Lewison (ed.), Circle. Constructive Art in Britain 1934-40, exhibition catalogue, Cambridge: Kettle’s Yard, 20 Feb. to 28 March 1982. For a more detailed literature review of Circle, see Chapter Two.

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Britain. It does, however, not consider the concepts of space put forward by Circle. Therefore, while the literature, particularly on contributors to Circle and on constructivism in the UK, stresses the relevance of Circle to the formation and dissemination of abstract, constructive and constructivist ideas and practices in the UK, the spatial concepts in Circle have not been considered in detail yet.⁵

Constructivism Constructivism has received more scholarly attention than Circle. While constructivist ideas have played a larger role in more recent literature in a number of disciplines, scholarship in English on Constructivism as an art movement had its heydays from the 1970s to the 1990s with Stephen Bann (ed.), The Tradition of Constructivism (1974); John Milner, Vladimir Tatlin and the Russian Avant-garde (1983) and the now classic by Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism (1983).⁶ These books considered Constructivism in Russia and its relationship to the West at a time when the Iron Curtain still separated the world along an eastwest axis that also divided Europe, politically dominated by such ideological approaches as Socialist Communism and democracy, a time when undertaking research by Western scholars in archives behind the Iron Curtain was much more difficult than today.⁷ Therefore, these publications established also a bridge between Russian Constructivism and the West, highlighting the fore the relationships to the Bauhaus and De Stijl and establishing the movement’s style and theories as being characterised by ‘constructing’ non-figurative art, rather than creating or designing it, to emphasise the closeness to technology, rejecting

 Constructivism will be spelled in capitals if it refers to the movement, usually known as Russian Constructivism, while derivatives of it and the word ‘constructive’, particularly referring to the English approach to Constructivism and in differentiation to the Russian movement, as outlined below, will be spelled in lower case.  See Stephen Bann (ed.), The Tradition of Constructivism, London: Thames & Hudson, 1974, an edited book that provided English versions of manifestos and other texts on Constructivism; John Milner, Vladimir Tatlin and the Russian Avant-Garde, New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1983 and Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism. New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1983. The literature review concentrates on scholarhip published in English. As shown below, if Circle has played a role, it was in English publications.  See, for example, Maria Gough, The Artist as Producer. Russian Constructivism in Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. She has mentioned that she was able to consult archives in Russia and Latvia untouched by scholarship so far. Taylor mentions the period’s emphasis on society divided by class and the consumer boom in Western economies as reasons for an increased interest in Russian Constructivism from the late 1970s. See Brandon Taylor, After Constructivism, London: Yale University Press, 2014, xii.

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the idea of autonomous art. Constructivist art is further defined by favouring geometric forms, design and art practice for social purposes. An analysis of the art works therefore always included not only architecture, sculpture and painting, but also graphic design, as it was equated with functionalism and utilitarianism. The latter has conventionally been seen as a difference between Russian/Soviet Constructivism and its forms in the West, which were identified as idealistic rather than utilitarian. These forms are therefore often termed not as Constructivist but as ‘concrete’ and ‘constructive’ ideas and practices.⁸ Bann in particular considered such forms in a context going beyond the UK and produced a diagram that will be discussed in detail further down. However, the scholarship of this period has concentrated on style, movement and artists, on ‘history’ and ‘tradition’ with a view to overcome to some extent research that has a strictly evolutionary and/or linear approach to movements.⁹ After the opening of the Iron Curtain, interest in Constructivism arose again particularly in the English-speaking world, concentrating on women artists in Russian Constructivism and on the question of possessions.¹⁰ It was now also possible to approach Russian Constructivism openly without running the danger of accusations of promoting communist ideas in the West; the Royal Academy of Arts in London organised a large exhibition to mark the centenary of the 1917 Russian Revolution and its aftermath (1917 to 1932), being able to mention in the title ‘Soviet’ art and architecture.¹¹

 Such a discussion goes back to the 1930s. For a differentiation of the terms, see Chapter Two.  See, for example, Patricia Sloane and George Rickey, ‘Constructivism: Origins and Evolution,’ The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 27, no. 3, 1969, 364. Rickey also published a monograph similar to this title: George Rickey, Constructivism. Origins and Evolution, New York: G. Braziller, 1995. For such an evaluation, see also Taylor, After Constructivism, xiii.  See M. N. Yablonskaya and Anthony Parton, Women Artists of Russia’s New Age 1900-1935, London: Thames and Hudson, 1990 and Christina Kiaer, Imagine no Possessions. The Socialist Objects of Russian Constructivism, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005. Catherine Walworth, Soviet Salvage. Imperial Debris, Revolutionary Reuse, and Russian Constructivism. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017. Walworth explores relationships of Russian Constructivists, among them Rodchenko and artists on the margins in the 1920s. The main focus is on how they imagined a new world with mass production (concentrating on porcelain, film, fashion and architecture) as opposed to ‘elitist’ media. The book emphasises the role of the Constructivist artist as bricoleur and engineer, applying theories on mythmakers by Claude LéviStrauss.  See Richard Pare, Mary Anne Stevens and Maria Tsantsanoglou (eds.), Building the Revolution. Soviet Art and Architecture 1915 – 1935, London: Royal Academy of Arts, 29 Oct. 2011 to 22 Jan. 2012. The exhibition was a collaboration with the SMCA in Thessaloniki and also held at CaixaForum, Barcelona (3 Feb. to 17 April 2011) and at CaixaForum, Madrid (26 May to 18 Sept. 2011). Its focus was on the involvement of state with architecture and the relationship be-

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More recent scholarship on Constructivist art concentrated on countries neglected so far, including former Soviet bloc states, such as the Czech Republic and Hungary, nation-states that play a role in view of Circle, as some of its contributors came from and were published there.¹² Two scholars in more recent years have expanded the discussion of Constructivist art in the UK. In 2005, Alan Fowler submitted a PhD thesis on Constructivist Art in Britain 1913 – 2005, which traces Constructivism up until recently.¹³ The thesis was followed by an article on the English branch of the Groupe Espace, which was founded by Paule Vézelay in London in 1953 (with Victor Pasmore as chairman from 1955) and included also contributors to Circle, such as Gropius and Breuer as members, and help from Martin, one of the editors of Circle. ¹⁴ The group’s ideas centred around the relationship between geometric abstraction and modernist architecture and was therefore not supported by Ben Nicholson. Despite differences from the group under consideration here, as outlined in more detail by Grieve’s book on Constructed Abstract Art in England, referred to below, Fowler shows the legacies of those involved in Circle. The other scholar is Brandon Taylor, whose book After Constructivism continues Fowler’s theme of exploring constructivist legacies. Unlike Fowler, however, he concentrated on factura, a concept that emphasised material qualities rather than subject matter, from its first theorising by David Burliuk in 1912, and its application in American and British Constructivism until today. It contributes to the discussion of Russian Constructivism by focusing on the relationship between sight and touch that created a new association between the art object and its viewer, still relevant to today, according to Taylor. For the author, the ‘after’ in tween art and architecture. For the changes since the opening of the Iron Curtain, see Richard Pare (interviewed by Tim Tower), ‘Spreading the Word,’ in: Pare et al. (eds.), Building the Revolution. Soviet Art and Architecture 1915-1935, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy of Arts: London, 29 Oct. 2011 to 22 Jan. 2012, 101– 7.  See Agnes Husslein-Arco and Alexander Klee (eds.), Cubism, Constructivism, Form Art, Munich: Prestel, 2016.  See Alan Fowler, Constructivist Art in Britain 1913-2005, PhD thesis: University of Southampton, 2006.  See Alan Fowler, ‘A Forgotten British Constructivist Group: The London Branch of Groupe Espace, 1953-59,’ The Burlington Magazine, vol. 149, no. 1248, 2007, 173 – 9. For the post-war relevance of space, see also the works by Lucio Fontana who launched two Spatial Manifestos, the latter in 1947, and produced sculptures and canvases with cuts defined as spatial. As argued by Anthony White, he was attempting to break down ‘the boundaries of the art object and connecting it to the surrounding environment’ and ‘opening the object to space’ (Anthony White, ‘Lucio Fontana. Between Utopia and Kitsch,’ Grey Room, vol. 1, no. 5, 2001, 54– 77 and Anthony White, Lucio Fontana. Between Utopia and Kitsch, Cambridge, Mass., London: MIT Press, 2011, 138 and 140).

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the book title refers not only to the content but also to its approach to Constructivism, which conceives of it as ‘a moment of creative and practical brilliance at an earlier revolutionary time’ in need of repositioning of its emphases and tendencies rather than a linear history of its tradition.¹⁵ While he also speaks of attitudes rather than style and history—an underlying approach against which this book develops a Spatial Art History in order to investigate the concepts of space —Taylor looks with a similar approach into Constructivists’ views that art objects insist on the ‘viewer’s participation […] to make the viewer move.’ Applying his approach, Taylor further provides a chapter on time and Constructivism. He also refers to Circle as a publication aiming at transforming the principles of Russian Constructivism by focusing on the ‘constructive’ idea.¹⁶ Another publication that has looked at Constructivism from a similar stance as this book is Maria Gough’s The Artist as Producer. ¹⁷ Gough considers constructivist sculpture as a spatial construction, views the artist’s constructivist undertakings as process (rather than product) and considers failure as part of a modernist narrative by analysing a case study which illustrates the problems of artists operating within the industry. These aspects play a role in my own the approach to Circle, outlined below. However, Gough only refers to Russian Constructivism studying the Institute of Artistic Culture (INKhUK) in Moscow, the first group of artists who called themselves Constructivists—while the following is a contribution to Constructivism in the UK.

Space in modern art and scholarship on English modern art Apart from scholarship on Constructivism, there is a body of work that concentrates on space in modern art. The publication closest to the topic of this book here is Elements of Abstraction. Space, Line & Interval in Modern British Art, an exhibition catalogue with contributions by Alan Fowler and Brandon Taylor whose monographic work has been mentioned above.¹⁸ Covering the period from the beginning of the century to the 1960s in 88 pages, it only is able to draw briefly attention to Circle and artists relevant to the topic. Apart from this publication, recent monographs on the artists discussed in this book have brought up the topic of space as part of their aesthetic understanding and their art works. This is particularly the case with Constructing Modernity. The  Taylor, After Constructivism, xiii.  See Taylor, After Constructivism, 108 – 110.  See Gough, The Artist as Producer. Russian Constructivism in Revolution.  See Alan Fowler and Brandon Taylor, Elements of Abstraction. Space, Line and Interval in Modern British Art, Southampton: Southampton City Art Gallery, 2005.

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Art and Career of Naum Gabo, written by Martin Hammer and Christina Lodder, who highlight a variety of influences on Gabo’s concept of space which, as will be shown, will also be applicable to other artists.¹⁹ Publications focusing on artists who contributed to Circle indicate the relevance of space as a topic and thus represent invaluable support for this book which, unlike them, provides a comparison of spatial concepts at a particular moment and place in time, i. e. that of 1930s Britain.²⁰ The period immediately after the 1930s has received attention in recent academic publications including a special issue of Art History. ²¹ It aims at approaching British art within a framework of transnational histories and geographies, consequently including essays not only on ‘British’ artists but also on the émigré Kurt Schwitters. This approach can be closely related to that of this book which, with its concentration on space and the publication Circle at its heart, is transnational. It also stresses this approach by having chosen ‘in Britain’ rather than ‘British art’ in the title, enabling an exploration of modern art in Britain that overcomes concepts of national entity and therefore challenges national approaches of ‘classic’ survey books of English art, including Dennis Farr’s monograph English Art 1870 – 1940 (1978) and Charles Harrison’s English Art and Modernism, 1900 – 1939 (1981), which both explore the 1930s in terms of movements, stressing the achievements of the British-born Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore.²²

 See Martin Hammer and Christina Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000.  For literature on artists who are discussed in view of concepts of space, see Penelope Curtis, Catherine Moriarty and Joseph Giovannini (eds.), Figuring Space. Sculpture/Furniture from Mies to Moore, Leeds: Henry Moore Institute, 2007. See also Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe who compared Dan Flavin’s work with that by Piet Mondrian, particularly in terms of space and technology (see Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, ‘Space and Speed in Flavin. Minimalism, Pop Art and Mondrian,’ in: Weiss and Fer (eds.), Dan Flavin. New Light, exhibition catalogue, New Haven, Washington: Yale University Press; National Gallery of Art, 2006, 82– 107). This literature will play a role in Chapter Three.  See Lisa Tickner and David Peters Corbett (eds.), British Art in the Cultural Field, 1939-69, Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.  See the various articles in Ysanne Holt, Fiona Russell and David Peters Corbett (eds.), The Geographies of Englishness. Landscape and the National Past, 1880 – 1940, New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2002 and David Peters Corbett, The Modernity of English Art, 1914-30, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997, though the latter concentrates on a period before that of this book (this also goes for Lisa Tickner, Modern Life and Modern Subjects. British Art in the Early Twentieth Century, New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2000 and Lara Perry and David Peters Corbett (eds.), English Art 1860-1914. Modern Artists and Identity, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000).

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1930s Britain has also been discussed from the angle of migration from Nazi Germany: a topic relevant to this book, which also argues that Britain, and particularly London, formed the centres of modern European art during that time. While my own monograph Identity and Image. Refugee Artists from Nazi Germany in Britain (1933 – 1945) (2006) explores art associations founded by émigrés and identity formations in Britain, arguing that migration fostered constructions of nation-state identities within the circles formed by the émigrés, The Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, edited by Shulamith Behr and Marian Malet, shows the multiplicity of migration from National Socialism through a variety of case studies.²³ Keith Holz follows artists migrating from Nazi-Germany to Paris, Prague and London in his Modern German Art for Thirties Paris, Prague and London. ²⁴ The London Borough of Hampstead, with its ‘nest of gentle artists’—a nickname coined by Herbert Read for the artists mentioned in this book—has been the subject of a number of publications and exhibitions, all without specifically analysing concepts of space.²⁵ This also goes for the publications celebrating the artists from St. Ives.²⁶ Special mention should be made of Penelope Curtis’ article

 Jutta Vinzent, Identity and Image. Refugee Artists from Nazi Germany in Britain, 1933-1945, Weimar: VDG (Verlag und Datenbank fü r Geisteswissenschaften), 2006 and Shulamith Behr and Marian Malet (eds.), Arts in Exile in Britain 1933 – 1945. Politics and Cultural Identity, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005.  See Keith Holz, Modern German Art for Thirties Paris, Prague, and London. Resistance and Acquiescence in a Democratic Public Sphere, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. These books continue the pioneering work of Cordula Frowein, who was the first to publish on the topic, including a ground-breaking article that appeared in Third Text (see Cordula Frowein, ‘German Artists in War-Time Britain,’ Third Text, vol. 15, no. 5, 1991, 47– 56).  See Herbert Read, ‘A Nest of Gentle Artists,’ Apollo, vol. 77, no. 7, 1962, 536– 40. This text has been reprinted with different illustrations as Herbert Read, ‘A Nest of Gentle Artists,’ in: Art in Britain 1930-40 Centred around Axis, Circle, Unit One, exhibition catalogue, Marlborough Fine Art Ltd: London, March to April 1965, 7– 8. For literature on Hampstead, see articles on specific houses, including Rudolf Fränkel’s house explored by Christina Thomson, ‘Architektur der Notwendigkeit,’ in: Held et al. (eds.), Kunst und Politik. Jahrbuch der Guernica-Gesellschaft, Osnabrück: Universitätsverlag, 2001, 85 – 104. See also exhibitions on Hampstead such as The Thirties. Influences on Abstract Art in Britain, exhibition catalogue, London: Annely Juda Fine Art, 1998; Arts Council of Great Britain (ed.), Thirties. British Art and Design before the War, exhibition catalogue, London: Victoria & Albert Museum, 1979; Jeannette Jackson and Michael Collins (eds.), Hampstead in the Thirties. A Committed Decade, exhibition catalogue, London: Camden Arts Centre, 29 Nov. 1974 to 19 Jan. 1975 and Art in Britain 1930 – 40 Centred around Axis, Circle, Unit One, exhibition catalogue, London: Marlborough Fine Art, 1965.  See, for example, Virginia Button, St Ives Artists. A Companion, London: Tate, 2009 and Michael Bird, The St Ives Artists. A Biography of Place and Time, Aldershot: Lund Humphries, 2008, despite subtitling the latter A Biography of Place and Space.

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on Sigfried Giedion and his concept of space-time, relevant here because of him having published in Circle. ²⁷ Publications including Janet Wolff’s AngloModern (2003), but also Lisa Tickner’s Modern Life and Modern Subjects (2000) have renewed the discourse on modernism and Britain; however, they do not consider the subject of space.²⁸ These books about modernism in Britain stand in contrast to that of Andrew Thacker, who proposes that studies of modernism need to consider how space, place and geography ‘occupied the modernist imagination.’²⁹ Thacker develops a spatial history of modernism, which in his case means that he looks at the diverse ways in which space can be applied to modernist literature. In a similar vein, this book has also methodologically grown out of literature usually subsumed under the Spatial Turn and will also explore space (rather than time or space-time), but in art concepts and art works and less so in architecture.³⁰ The motivation to explore concepts of space certainly has associations with spatial considerations in scholarship on art other than Constructivism.³¹ Such scholarship has emphasised the relevance of discourses of space to modernism,

 See Penelope Curtis, ‘1937: Maillart, Giedion and the Reading of Time in Contemporary Sculpture,’ Sculpture Journal, vol. 2, 2002, 54– 61.  Spatial concepts are also not mentioned in David Getsy (ed.), Sculpture and the Pursuit of a Modern Ideal in Britain, c. 1880-1930, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004 nor in Arts Council of Great Britain (ed.), British Art and the Modern Movement 1930-40, exhibition catalogue, Cardiff: National Museum of Wales, 1962, although Alan Bowness, in the introduction of the latter, compares the mid-1930s work of Nicholson with Mondrian and the abstract carvings of Hepworth in terms of ‘spatial, formal and textual’ exploration (11).  Andrew Thacker, Moving through Modernity. Space and Geography in Modernism. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003, 3.  The reason for the latter’s exclusion is that scholarship has already widely asserted the relevance of space to architecture; it led to the foundation of the journal Space Structures, published between 1988 and 1999, which concentrated on frame structures in architecture. In fact, many books concentrating on a variety of media and published in the 1990s and 2000s use space in their title, which seems to show how widely used this term has become.  In fact, many books concentrating on a variety of media and published in the 1990s and 2000s use space in their title, which seems to show how widely used this term has become. Alex Potts has dedicated an entire chapter to ‘Objects and Spaces’, in which he explores minimal art, particularly Donald Judd’s understanding of space, arguing for a ‘phenomenological turn’ for sculptures in the 1960s, a shift from the conditions of the ideal encounter with art to those of an anticipated encounter with the art object; in other words, to an artist who assumes the viewer moving around an object present in the same physical space. See Alex Potts, The Sculptural Imagination. Figurative, Modernist, Minimalist. New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2000.

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particularly that of Thacker mentioned above.³² Referring to the geographer Neil Smith, he indicates that his own approach is influenced by recent trends in research on culture focusing on geographical methods such as mapping, location, metaphorical and material spaces as well as on sociological methods which view space as social. Indeed, it has been David Harvey and Edward Casey who especially critique the domination of temporality in Western academia, for them a consequence of the Enlightenment, and seek to return to space and place in scholarly investigations.³³ In the arts, viewing art as social is not new; it was particularly Constructivism that has been related to it, albeit contemplating utopian space. Indeed, it is publications on Constructivism and constructive art that have mentioned the relevance of space, particularly to architecture. This also includes those publications concentrating on the legacies of the so-called ‘constructed abstract art’, such as Alastair Grieve’s Constructed Abstract Art in England. After the Second World War. A Neglected Avant-Garde published in the series of the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, which focuses on a group around Victor Pasmore, referring to the legacies of continental constructed abstract art, and particularly to Paul Klee. Though not foregrounding the topic of space, it mentions that books about space were on Mary and Kenneth Martin’s bookshelves, including Giedion’s Space, Time and Architecture, and outlines the varying relevance of mathematics to sculpture production.³⁴ As noted by many, the cultural turn towards space is older than the so-called Spatial Turn. Michaela Ott, for example, suggests that already at the end of the nineteenth century, space becomes central to art history. Stephen Kern’s book, The Culture of Time and Space, 1880 – 1918 (second edition published in 2003), focuses on an earlier period and also on a slightly different scope, namely that of industry, science and society. Hence, while space has played a role in secondary literature on art and other subjects, only few publications have highlighted its relevance to artists discussed in this book, while none have considered it alone as a central theme in 1930s

 See also, for example, Scott McQuire, The Media City. Media, Architecture and Urban Space Los Angeles, London: Sage, 2008.  See David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity. An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989, 240 – 59 and Edward Casey, Getting Back into Place. Toward a Renewed Understanding of the Place-World, Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 2010, 3 – 10.  See Alastair I. Grieve, Constructed Abstract Art in England after the Second World War. A Neglected Avant-Garde, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.

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Britain in particular, arguably a melting-pot for this topic.³⁵ This book endeavours to provide therefore an insight into concepts of space on the one hand, and the circulation and dissemination of Constructivist theories and art works on the other.

1.3 Towards a Spatial Art History This book will not only focus on concepts of space historically but also develop a methodology termed Spatial Art History in light of adaptations of spatial practices in other disciplines developed after the so-called Spatial Turn. The methodology is motivated by a need to move away from an understanding of artists and art as operating in a cultural setting removed from society (evident in Formalism), of artists who practise in a society or art works which represent society (being the premises of social art histories). Such approaches are based on an assumption of society as anonymous and pre-existing, a criticism put forward by Bruno Latour’s book Reassembling the Social as part of his Actor-Network Theory (ANT).³⁶ Therefore a Spatial Art History attempts to overcome a reductive understanding of art as a mere mirror or facilitator of society and proposes to consider objects in their material spatio-temporal existence, as objects that encourages and bring social relations to the fore. In the following, I will explore those methodologies, which play a role in the formation of a Spatial Art History: namely first, the Spatial Turn; second, the art object as material culture; and third, art and social relations—with an attempt to both align and distance myself from these. Therefore, a Spatial Art History is not entirely new, but should be understood as a combination and adjustment of already existing approaches to the art work.

 This is also surprising in view of a number of books on space appearing at the time around the publication of Circle in Britain in other fields: publications include Walter Ernest Allen, Living Space (1940), Stojan Pribicebic, Living Space (1940); Robert Rene Kuczynski, Living-Space and Population Problems (1939); Paul Theodore Frankl, Space for Living (1938); Alfred Robb, Geometry of Time and Space (1936) and the most influential, which was already published in 1920, Arthur Stanley Eddington, Space Time and Gravitation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1920. Space played an important role until the early 1960s (including Carola Giedion-Welcker, Contemporary Sculpture. An Evolution in Volume and Space, London: Faber and Faber, 1961), when it ceased to be discussed on a regular basis. For details supporting this observation, see the last chapter of this book.  See Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social. An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

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The Spatial Turn What has become known as the Spatial Turn goes back to Henri Lefebvre’s seminal book, The Production of Space, which is cited as being fundamental for the so-called Spatial Turn in the 1990s, when the geographer Edward Soja revived Lefebvre.³⁷ As outlined, for example, by Jörg Dünne and Stephan Günzel, space played an important role in philosophy before Lefebvre.³⁸ However, one of the most influential thinkers regarding the methodology of this book is undoubtedly that of Lefebvre, whose ground-breaking monograph The Production of Space has had a defining impact on current interests in spatiality. Spatial theory became a major subject in geography by introducing studies on human geography. As outlined by Barney Warf and Santa Arias, the Spatial Turn has influenced a number of disciplines. In terms of sociology, it was Martina Löw, with her book Raumsoziologie (2001), who developed a new concept particularly influential in the German-language academic discourse.³⁹ For her, space is produced by the arrangement of social goods or people (called by Löw ‘spacing’) and the understanding of this arrangement is called by her ‘synthesis capacity.’ Space is thought of as not been given, but having to be constructed. If space is thus not essential (ontologically speaking), it must be relative and dynamic. These approaches have not been applied to art history, though the Spatial Turn has certainly had an impact on the literature of various forms of art published in the 1990s and 2000s as mentioned above.⁴⁰ However, it has not been applied to the 1930s, despite being a topic at the time. Furthermore, literature  See Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991. According to Jörg Dünne und Stephan Günzel, the term Spatial Turn was coined after the publication of Edward W. Soja, Postmodern Geographies. The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory, London: Verso, 1989. See Jörg Dünne and Stephan Günzel, ‘Vorwort,’ in: Dünne et al. (eds.), Raumtheorie Grundlagentexte aus Philosophie und Kulturwissenschaften, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2006, 9 – 18, 12.  In their book Raumtheorie, Dünne and Günzel have grouped influential essays historically under six headings: physics and metaphysics (Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Uexküll and Einstein), phenomenology (Lewin, Heidegger, Husserl, Bachelard and Merleau-Ponty), bodily, technologically and mediated spaces (Lacan, Leroi-Gourhan, Irigaray, Virilio and Flusser), social spaces (Simmel, Foucault, Lefebvre, Certeau and Bourdieu), political-geographical spaces (Ratzel, Braudel, Schmitt, Arendt and Deleuze/Guattari) and aesthetic spaces as outlined below. See Jörg Dünne, Stephan Günzel, Hermann Doetsch and Roger Lüdeke (eds.), Raumtheorie. Grundlagentexte aus Philosophie und Kulturwissenschaften, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2006.  See Martina Löw, Raumsoziologie, Frankfurt: Surhkamp, 2001 (translated as Martina Löw, The Sociology of Space. Materiality, Social Structures and Action, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).  For an impact, see particularly, Frank Mort, Cultures of Consumption. Masculinities and Social Space in Late Twentieth-Century Britain, London: Routledge, 1996.

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which deals with space as a methodology has not considered how the suggested method has precursors in modern art and how a spatial approach is different from those theories developed in the first half of the twentieth century. For Lefebvre, space is a social product which affects spatial practices and offers the possibility to read social relations that are not visible. With such a method, he devised a close relationship between space and society. What followed was a generation of academics who conceived of space as neither simply natural geography nor an empty container filled by history. This generation believed that space, whether mathematical, mental or physical is never devoid of social relations. Warf and Arias trace the influence of such theory in a number of disciplines except in the History of Art,⁴¹ while Julia Burbulla shows how art historical writing can be linked with the Spatial Turn.⁴² Spatial practice in literature has been adopted by Jaimey Fisher and Barbara Mennel in their book Spatial Turns. Space, Place, and Mobility in German Literary and Visual Culture,⁴³ while some art projects discussed further below could also be seen as related to the Spatial Turn.

Of art objects and art things that act If social relations create space and space brings to the fore social relations, one might ask what space means. While Lefebvre’s main concern was with urban space and therefore concentrated on architecture in its spatial dimension that makes visible social relations, a Spatial Art History considers such an approach  See Barney Warf and Santa Arias (eds.), The Spatial Turn. Interdisciplinary Perspectives, London: Routledge, 2009. See also Dünne, Günzel, Doetsch and Lüdeke (eds.), Raumtheorie. Grundlagentexte aus Philosophie und Kulturwissenschaften. This book has a chapter titled ‘aesthetic spaces’ under which are published texts authored by August Schmarsow, Ernst Cassirer, Max Herrmann, Eric Rohmer and Jurij Lotman, texts which date from 1894 as the earliest to 1970 as the latest. With the selection of these primary sources, the definition of ‘aesthetic spaces’ is left in the twilight of aesthetics as a discipline in philosophy and a category subsuming arts including architecture, theatre, film and fine arts. The selection is not explained other than by mentioning that the texts concentrate on the twentieth century up until 1990, where he located the Spatial Turn.  See Julia Burbulla, Kunstgeschichte nach dem Spatial Turn. Eine Wiederentdeckung mit Kant, Panofsky und Dorner, Bielefeld: Transcript, 2015. She situates the Spatial Turn into the end of the 1980s. While she also sees Kantian philosophy as central for this process in which time and space became relevant, she does not develop a new methodology that is based on the premises of literature on the Spatial Turn. In this way, it is more a historical account rather than a new methodology.  See Jaimey Fisher and Barbara Caroline Mennel (eds.), Spatial Turns. Space, Place, and Mobility in German Literary and Visual Culture, Amsterdam; New York: Rodopi, 2010.

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for a greater number of media in their spatial dimension. It therefore takes account of those approaches which emphasise that pictures act, such as that of Horst Bredekamp.⁴⁴ With its emphasis on society, the spatial methodology stands especially in the tradition of William Mitchell, who was less interested in the interpretation of images and more in the description of the social field in which one perceives art.⁴⁵ By referring to Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx, Mitchell conceives of visual and verbal representations as living things. Wolfgang Kemp also sees the art work as somehow alive by assuming that it occupies and activates the spectator who is therefore considered by him as a ‘beholder.’⁴⁶ This is how the spatial methodology conceives of the thing, namely as an agency with the capacity to initiate social relations and interactions. While all of these theories (Bredekamp, Mitchell and Kemp) stand in the tradition of the Deweyan concept of aesthetic experience, assuming a beholder or spectator who is affected by the image,⁴⁷ the sug-

 See Horst Bredekamp and Elizabeth Clegg, Image Acts. A Systematic Approach to Visual Agency, Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 2018. See also the project Bildakt-Forschung at http://gep ris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/56050943, for which Bredekamp was PI. This project also includes Bildakt und Verkörperung / Picture Act and Embodiment, the emphasis of the second part of the project phase. See also, for example, Gottfried Boehm, Wie Bilder Sinn erzeugen. Die Macht des Zeigens, Berlin: Berlin University Press, 2007, W. J. T. Mitchell, Picture Theory. Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation, Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press, 1994 and W. J. T. Mitchell, What do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images, Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 2005. It has already been put forward by Alfred Gell that objects have agency in his (unfinished) book manuscript now published as Alfred Gell, Art and Agency. An Anthropological Theory, Oxford: Clarendon, 1998. Being unfinished, it lacks, however, an introduction proper that summarises the manuscript’s overall argument. Nevertheless, many of his ideas feature in a Spatial Art History (including the emphasis on doing, the critique of the artist as self-sufficient and the art work as an end-point of action). However, a Spatial Art History would not talk about indexes or ensembles, but rather of nodes and nets, focusing on infinity and multiperspectivity.  See Mitchell, Picture Theory. Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation.  Wolfgang Kemp, ‘The Work of Art and Its Beholder,’ in: Cheetham (ed.), The Subjects of Art History. Historical Objects in Contemporary Perspectives, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, 180 – 96. See also James Elkins, The Object Stares Back. On the Nature of Seeing, New York, London: Simon & Schuster, 1996, who provides a number of intriguing examples to explain what looking can mean. Although it seems as if the object’s materiality disappears, becoming only a look (as an activity) for him, he convincingly argues that ‘each object has a certain force, a certain way of resisting or accepting my look and returning that to me’ (70).  See John Dewey, Art as Experience. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1934. Dewey’s approach stands in the tradition of those that argue that the object produces, which he called aesthetic experience. However, unlike the above, the emphasis in the relationship between object and beholder was on experience rather than on production and construction. Furthermore, he con-

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gested methodology goes a step further by considering not only the effect on the spectator but also the impact of the social on art production, whereby the social is seen as consisting of individuals and groups, as outlined below. Indeed, the art object is considered as a site that produces a specific sociability, as Nicolas Bourriaud formulated in his relational aesthetics.⁴⁸ However, in the interdependence between the art object and society, the art object is not only considered a disruption to the social through which such interdependence is created, as suggested by Claire Bishop.⁴⁹ It can be a disruption, but also a confirmation of the social or translation. Particularly constructive art, as shown below in Chapter Three, has been considered by constructive and constructivist artists and art critics contemporary to the time as desiring to create a new society (in other words, as confirmation) as a result of reacting to art objects.⁵⁰ This can be seen as a process of ‘mirroring’ of the art object onto a ‘new’ society as well as the art object disrupting the current society. Moreover, the theories mentioned are less concerned with the spatial dimensionality of art objects. A Spatial Art History would also inquire into the kind of spaces created by the art object and assume of the art object as being spatial. Additionally, a Spatial Art History perceives of art objects as things, which Arjun Appadurai in his edited book The Social Life of Things, has defined as a term encompassing anything that can be exchanged.⁵¹ For Appadurai ‘thingsin-motion […] illuminate their human and social context.’⁵² These can be objects

ceived of art not as form, but as expression of the life of community. See Cynthia Freeland, But Is It Art? An Introduction to Art Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.  See Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics, Dijon: Presses du réel, 2002, 109: ‘All works of art produce a model of sociability.’ Bourriaud argues for a relational aesthetic, an interdependence between beholder and art object, particularly in view of art since the 1990s. He criticises the avantgarde, particularly the view of Greenberg, of an independence of art objects from society. Identifying the avant-garde with an independence of the art object may well be true for some, but not for all avantgarde. As shown below, artists such as Naum Gabo and art critics such as Herbert Read formulated theories in which the art was closely related to a society.  See Claire Bishop, ‘Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics,’ October, vol. 110, no. Fall, 2004, 51– 79.  It is the desire and attempt to change society, as distinct from the actual doing so, that separates modern art from those contemporary art works which Bishop describes. Nevertheless, the function of the art object (whether disrupting, constructing or mirroring) can be seen in a similar way.  See Arjun Appadurai (ed.), The Social Life of Things. Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.  Arjun Appadurai, ‘Introduction. Commodities and the Politics of Value,’ in: Appadurai (ed.), The Social Life of Things. Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, 3 – 63, 5.

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such as paintings, sculptures, (art) books and magazines. In our case, these are related to art, which is defined as a specific production of space that is part of the inquiry. Moreover, art, unlike other forms such as technology or nature, puts an emphasis on being produced by human beings and therefore seems to form already a certain relationship to social life that needs, however, closer inspection. Considering space as a topic in art history is not new. Greenberg’s definition of ‘Modernist Painting’ in his seminal lecture in 1961 is based on a particular concept of space, namely that of flatness. For him, flatness was emblematic of the avant-garde art, reaching its peak in the colour field paintings of the Abstract Expressionists.⁵³ While Greenberg’s theory is a spatial approach to art, he considers space as a formal quality and without a view of society.⁵⁴ Such an approach counts under Formalism, which has been critiqued for its treatment of art as autonomous, and therefore is usually contrasted with social art histories.⁵⁵

 See Clement Greenberg, ‘Modernist Painting,’ in: Frascina and Harris (eds.), Art in Modern Culture. An Anthology of Critical Texts, London: Phaidon, 1992, 308 – 14.  Apart from a formal quality, space has been considered more broadly as a topic in art, particularly in literature published in German such as Anne Moser’s outline titled Anne Moser, Raum und Zeit im Spiegel der Kultur, Frankfurt: Lang, 2003. See also Michael Diers and Angela Lammert, Topos Raum. Die Aktualitä t des Raumes in den Kü nsten der Gegenwart, 2005 and Matthias Flügge, Volker Demuth and Julia Bernhard (eds.), Raum. Orte der Kunst, exhibition catalogue, Berlin: Akademie der Künste, 23 Feb. to 22 April 2007. While the older one looks at contemporary art only and also approaches space as a topic (the book is speakingly called Topos Raum), the 2007 catalogue focuses on classical modern art describing a variety of spaces, but without developing or describing their approach as a methodology. Art-historical writing that seems more relevant in the attempt of breaking up an understanding of space as container is best summarised by Michaela Ott, ‘Ästhetik/Kunstgeschichte,’ in: Günzel (ed.), Raumwissenschaften, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2009, 14– 29. In her chapter on aesthetics/art history, Ott situates this into the nineteenth century (19). Thus looking at art from a spatial perspective is anything but new or unique, also considering art historians such as Erwin Panofsky and his contributions on perspective, Ernst Cassirer’s conception of space as symbolic form, Heinrich Wölfflin’s space as formal element and Karl Albiker’s contribution of space as a tactile as well as a visual category. See also Chapter 3.3.  An exception seems to be David Summers, Real Spaces. World Art History and the Rise of Western Modernism, London: Phaidon Press, 2003, a hefty monograph that explores spatial attributes of art and architecture and their relation to social functions. He creates a history in which all art and architecture but also philosophical issues, such as doubt and scepticism, and the act of viewing (particularly in his chapter on ‘virtuality’) have a place in terms of spatiality. Although I share some of his considerations, the book only touches lightly on a Spatial Art History, as Summers still considers space as an attribute rather than a methodology with which to explain social relations.

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In the attempt to treat art not as autonomous, a Spatial Art History is therefore closer to social art histories than to Formalism.

Art and social relations and the relevance of network theories A Spatial Art History considers the relationship between art objects as things and social relations as a spatial distancing metaphorically speaking, a distancing from the object.⁵⁶ Distancing is spacing, is about constructing space which is not taken as a given, in order to conceive, perceive and reshape society. It therefore has alliances with network theories, which are diverse, but united by a framework that emphasises relationality, because it explores the connections between actors rather than (only) the attributes of actors. This section will therefore not only refer to art historical methodologies already existing, but also to network theories. A Spatial Art History stands in the tradition of social art histories which critique the autonomy of the art work and the artist as ‘genius’, emphasising instead that art is part of a social and political context and is not produced in a ‘vacuum’, such as Janet Wolff’s classic book The Social Production of Art has already argued.⁵⁷ The methodology also draws on those publications that use space as a topic as their starting-point, such as Griselda Pollock’s well-known chapter ‘Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity’ published in 1988, which uses space as a formal quality in Impressionist images and space as social to argue that the gender differences in subject-matter are explained by the fact that males and females were able to enter different social spaces at the time.⁵⁸ Most importantly, however, the Spatial Art History sees itself in the tradition of those writers who do not assume a social context as given but as being produced and therefore the art object as an active part in establishing the social, such as Timothy J. Clark, whose books, The Painting of Modern Life and Image of the People, are publications that relate to modern French art.⁵⁹  Such a relationship is not without its problems. See, for example, Foucault and Derrida as two Poststructuralists critiquing the relationship between subject and object by writing about art works. See Michel Foucault, The Order of Things. An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, London: Tavistock Publications, 1970, 3 – 18 and Jacques Derrida, The Truth in Painting, Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press, 1987.  See Janet Wolff, The Social Production of Art, London: Macmillan, 1981.  See Griselda Pollock, Vision and Difference. Femininity, Feminism and the Histories of Art, London: Routledge, 1988, 50 – 90.  See T. J. Clark, Image of the People. Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution, London: Thames & Hudson, 1973 and Timothy J. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life. Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers, Thames and Hudson, 1984. In the latter, Clark assumes a close relation-

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Indeed, how can society pre-exist? In his book Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory, Latour has challenged this notion of the social as an a priori fixed force or context that can be used to explain or shed light on phenomena, as already mentioned at the beginning of this section.⁶⁰ He argues that actors are never embedded in a social context. For Latour ‘society is the consequence of associations and not their cause.’ In the ANT the social is only visible by the traces it leaves when a new association is produced. The social, therefore, according to Latour, does not explain anything, but is to be explained as a network of associations involving performative social-aggregates. Indeed, context ‘gets in the way; context identifies the actors in advance, making it impossible to attend to how they make themselves through networks.’⁶¹ ‘Context’ means that entire domains are decided in advance, as if it were a self-same coherent structure that can be shown to influence, enable and form the domain for the subject under investigation. Indeed, ‘context always harbours assumptions about how the boxes are drawn and where the arrows should point, but ANT resists any such normative presumptions.’⁶² Therefore, one important target of a Spatial Art History, which significantly distances it from social art histories, is, as mentioned above, to get rid of the assumption of a social context, for the reasons outlined by Latour.

ship between the social and place, when he notes that ‘the contexts of bourgeois sociability shifted from community, family and church to commercialised or privately improvised forms— the streets, the cafes and resorts’ in his introduction to the book. However, he does not acknowledge that the places are the producers of social relations, in other words, that it was the streets, cafes and the resorts that made visible the shifts in the sociability and that this sociability consisted of associations. It is therefore rather his publication Image of the People, in which he unambiguously advocates that art is not a mere reflection but creates the social. Hence, the suggested methodology would like to expand on this approach to a social art history already advanced by Clark for the modern period in the 1970s. For the eighteenth century, see the last chapter of Thomas E. Crow, Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris / Thomas E. Crow. New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1985; for the fifteenth century, see Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy. A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972, who sees painting as the expression of social relations. Unlike Baxandall, however, a Spatial Art History also assumes that objects create (not only represent) social relations.  See Latour, Reassembling the Social. An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory.  Anna Tsing, ‘Worlding the Matsutake Diaspora. Or, Can ANT Experiment with Holism?,’ in: Ton and Bubandt (eds.), Experiments in Holism. Theory and Practice in Contemporary Anthropology, Chichester, West Sussex; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, 47– 66, 47.  Benjamin Piekut, ‘Actor-Networks in Music History. Clarifications and Critiques,’ TwentiethCentury Music, vol. 11, 2014, 191– 215, 205. Piekut applies Latour to the history of music, reviewing particularly context, influence and genre.

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In order to do so, a Spatial Art History, needs to go beyond Lefebvre’s onedimensional and one-directional approach that conceives of space as a social product. While Latour assumes with Lefebvre that things create social relations, he nowhere speaks of this being a spatial practice. Lefebvre, on the other hand, does not really seem to provide any answer as to how the spacing may be structured. Hence, a Spatial Art History wants to consider the relationship between things and social relations multi-dimensionally and multi-directionally. One such approach is the ANT which develops the structure as a network.⁶³ In the ANT, all actors are ‘mediators’ and do not just transport effects without transforming them. Action takes place through a chain of translations (or better ‘transmutations’) that disperse, mediate and circulate agency; agency is not concentrated in a single entity.⁶⁴ Importantly, as opposed to explaining a set of affairs using a stable social, Latour defines a series of uncertainties, arguing that ‘action is a conglomerate of many surprising agents that have to be slowly disentangled.’⁶⁵ It is important here to note that Latour does not consider ANT to be a methodology, but a theory that leaves aside vague concepts like ‘context’, ‘social’ or ‘influence’, and which, according to Mol and Law, ‘attempts to register the effects of anything that acts in a given situation, regardless of whether that actor is human, technological, discursive, or material.’⁶⁶ The ANT aims to provide an empirically justified description of historical events, ‘one that highlights the controversies, trials and contingencies of truth, instead of reporting it as coherent, self-evident, and available for discovery.’⁶⁷ Piekut notes ‘by taking on these methodological principles (e. g. understanding agency as an eventful relation among actors of all kind, and observing action as series of mediations) we are equipped to meet and describe the world with an appropriate level of complexity.’ Therefore, a Spatial Art History does not emphasise context and artist’s influence—which implies the existence of a large, homogenous, invisible social

 For the history of network theories, see, for example, John Law, ‘Actor Network Theory and Material Semiotics,’ in: Turner (ed.), The New Blackwell Companion to Social Theory, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008, 141– 58. Together with Mol, he combines several views, very useful for understanding associations and networks in John Law and Annemarie Mol (eds.), Complexities. Social Studies of Knowledge Practices, Durham: Duke University Press, 2002.  Latour, Reassembling the Social. An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory, 108.  Ibid., 44.  Annemarie Mol and John Law, ‘Region, Networks and Fluids: Anaemia and Social Topography,’ Social Studies of Science, vol. 24, 1994, 641– 71, 643.  Piekut, ‘Actor-Networks in Music History. Clarifications and Critiques’, 193.

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context as an explanation for that influence—but traces associations and networks. This also applies to broader frameworks. Latour is critical of the notion of a ‘framework’ ‘inside of which interactions are supposed to have nested.’ He criticises researchers’ maneuvers to ‘put things in a wider context’, arguing that this means that ‘actors will be simultaneously held by the context and holding it in place: the context will be at once what makes the actors behave and what is being made in turn by the actors’ feedback.’ He argues that ‘interactions are flowing in all directions but this does not mean that some solid overarching context holds them solidly in place through the grip of some hidden structural force.’ A Spatial Art History therefore collapses the divide between the micro/ local and macro/global, arguing that neither exist as positions: ‘no place dominates enough to be global and no place is self-contained enough to be local.’ Accordingly, rather than relying on a priori decisions that the small local is enclosed by the global context (like Russian dolls where the small is enclosed by the large), a Spatial Art History conceives the shape of activity and interactions, focuses on ‘circulating entities’ and the connection/association between things (which produce the social) and should trace the vehicle of and movement between sites.⁶⁸ In other words, this book will not place Circle within Constructivism or constructive art, but rather follows the associations formed so that the kind of Constructivism practised in the UK is based on a plurality of associations; associations between individuals whereby the art objects and things make visible these social relations. Like Latour’s ANT, therefore, this book does not understand a network as a series of relations between people—for example X influenced Y, who knew Z. Hereby, ideas move through a ‘network’ but do so ‘mysteriously’ (to use Latour’s word). Rather, the ‘network’ is the method, not the object of investigation. In this sense, Latour’s ANT is often misunderstood, particularly when thought of without the physicality of things. What is meant with a network is described by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari as smooth space consisting of an interrelationship of orientation, landmarks and linkages, of sets of relations as opposed to striated space, which they com-

 Latour, Reassembling the Social. An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory, 167. Such a focus is not without problems. If one argues that, for example, market or the state does not exist, it ‘seems to be a misunderstanding of what it means for social objects to exist’ (Monika Krause, ‘Recombining Micro/Macro. The grammar of Theoretical Innovation,’ European Journal of Social Theory, vol. 16, no. 2, 2013, 139 – 52, 147). Furthermore, one may also wonder whether interactions are not entirely autonomous, not free and not just, do not work in any one interaction, but only change in interaction with others.

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pare with woven fabric, an approach associated with Assemblage theory.⁶⁹ A Spatial Art History brings to the fore how an idea was received, transformed and changed, neglecting, however, the question about the origin of the idea. It presents the publication of Circle not only as the product of communications and negotiations between several individuals who served various functions, but rather as producing such social associations. Likewise art objects and concepts should not be considered as the product of an artist only, but also as creating social relations. In fact, the emphasis is not on finding an original, but on the act of being created and on those who created it, namely the artists, editors, publisher and reviewers as a complex network. While the ANT seems to speak more of actors that may or may not be human, with the focus of being on the acting as such, the emphasis of the suggested methodology is on things that create social relations as a correlative and searches for attributes of things and social relations. In other words, unlike the ANT that assumes a flattened hierarchy in which humans and non-humans do not differ, a Spatial Art History differentiates ontologically between social relations and things through the attributes which each receive through their spacing (with an emphasis on the relationship which is characterised too as part of the analysis).⁷⁰ The primary way in which the suggested methodology differs from the ANT is that things can create an effect, but only in resonance with a human being. In other words, things do not build an association with other things without human interaction. This also means that one cannot speak of influences as such, but only of them being manifested in a thing and taken further by a human being. There is always a human being involved, although it takes its startingpoint from the thing and takes into account that social relations are made visible through things. Therefore, in the latter sense, a Spatial Art History does not necessarily invalidate entire achievements through research undertaken so far. However, the point is that it results in a change in emphasis throughout the process of investigation as well as in the starting-point of an investigation. Therefore, it may lead

 See Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. Unlike Assemblage theory, however, a Spatial Art History’s focus lies on what networks do, how these act and what kind of relationships these form.  In this respect, A Spatial Art History also differs from the approach taken by David McNeill, ‘Art Without Authors: Networks, Assemblages and “Flat” Ontology,’ Third Text, vol. 24, no. 4, 2010, 397– 408. For Latour’s argument that nature and society is a dualistic understanding that derives from modernity, see Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993.

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to more precise reasoning of why certain practices or events took place because it forces the connections and associations between entities to be traced. While taking on aspects from Latour’s ANT, this book proposes to call the methodology Spatial Art History. Latour does not recognise that spatial distancing is involved, possibly because his prime concern is the structure of society and not the relationship formed between a thing and society, which he assumed as just being an action. Therefore, the methodology suggested here takes on aspects of the ANT to explain the structuring between thing and the social, but, as it is concerned with the thing first, it suggests that there is a spacing initiated by the thing that creates the social, which can be qualified as more than just being an action. Therefore the methodology is called Spatial Art History and not an art historical ANT, although, admittedly, the ANT plays an important role in explaining the step after the distancing. If one were to ask what kind of society is produced, it would be through the associations as assumed by the ANT, as it involves an openness rather than a closed, one-directional approach that is evident in an approach that favours that subjects create objects only. To summarise the above, the following table lists the major points of a Spatial Art History by way of comparison to what it is not: What Spatial Art History is NOT about

Spatial Art History

Understanding of history: Starting-point from a world in which past, present and future all exist in a container-like space

Understanding of history: Starting-point from an agency (thing/object) that opens up new associations, constructs the past, present and future

Understanding of the social: as given; an a priori social context to which an object is added or a society which is represented by the object Society and object: the object (e. g. art work) reflects/ ‘represents’ society (society and history as an existing framework into which the object will be put; in which it will be contextualised)

Understanding of the social: Society is created through associations; a spacing between object which is understood as thing, and subject Society and thing: the thing initiates the construction of society and history (society and history with all possibilities that the object creates)

Objects are intermediaries without transformation

Things modify and transform what they carry, space themselves always anew to the subject

Consequences: Social context

Associations

An emphasis on copying and difference (between two singularly understood entities such as art objects, styles or movements)

An emphasis on distancing (spacing) without giving up associations/connections with the other, therefore including what has conven-

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continued What Spatial Art History is NOT about

Spatial Art History tionally been regarded as failure and opposites; possibly with qualifying attributes of the distance/relationship, such as ‘close’, ‘distant’, ‘further away/closer together than’, ‘dense’ and ‘light’ (characterising the number of associations formed around actors)

Influence (in the sense of cause and effect) and sole creator

Artist operating in a network of associations; associations are looser than cause-effect and multi-dimensional rather than one-directional; therefore associations include potential outcome and are understood more in the sense of interaction, as they bring to the fore the common point without assuming a more complete take-over; thus, one speaks of closeness of associations (rather than ‘being influenced’) and collaboration

An emphasis on similarities and analogies

An emphasis on densities of relationships and on possibilities

Tradition/unchangeable

Transformation

An emphasis on originality, newness

Drawing/discovering associations previously not considered; assuming that associations can always be drawn further

The network of social relations as the object of investigation (without considering the relationship to objects as things)

The network as method (an emphasis on the means of dissemination) opening up a space to allow more connecting points; the network of social relations related to things

This diagram does not attempt to be comprehensive, but it should highlight what a Spatial Art History encompasses in its understanding of history and society, resulting in the treatment of things, of art works and ideas formulated in writing in our case, differently in view of starting-points and emphases, as it considers the relationality to each other as ‘spacing.’

Spatial Art History and space as a topic Furthermore, as demonstrated by the examples below, a Spatial Art History emphasises place (geographical but also metaphorical ones) and includes mapping and other techniques that focus on space, place and location. As also demon-

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strated in this book, a Spatial Art History does not necessarily take on mapping and clouds, but it always imagines its sources spatially, both metaphorically and literally.⁷¹ It therefore consists of two aspects: first, an analysis based on a Spatial Art History investigates what kind of spaces are created by a specific art work and art theory, assuming that any thing has a spatial dimension and forms a relationship with other things that can also be investigated. Second, and this is essential, it would explore how these things are associated with the social; how the things produce the social and how people produce things, characterising the associations and assuming of these associations as infinite.

Volumised: Correlative and relational Unlike Mitchell and those who see pictures as being alive, the suggested Spatial Art History does not only consider the thing as acting, but that the thing and the social perform a correlative relationship. This means that the emphasis of a Spatial Art History is on relationships and qualifying these relationships. Without human actors, who produce (such as artists), perceive (such as spectators) and use/reshape things (through an artist, critic or an exhibition, for example), there is no art thing and arguably no spacing. Therefore the Spatial Art History assumes the relationship to the thing as correlative and reciprocal, as a dynamic process in which the thing produces social relations, but the social, in the form of artists or collaborative groups, also produces things. ⁷² This relationship is dynamic and correlative, it consists of the act of doing as a processual and performative act, so that it is constantly moving and changing and this act is what produces both the thing and the social.⁷³ In view of writing art history with a Spatial Art History approach, dynamics can mean that the relationships between the things and the social get fixed when these are established through the act of writing. This fixation is, however, changeable and therefore dynamic,

 See also the journal Artl@s Bulletin dedicated to digital mapping based on quantitative research.  See also Pierre Bourdieu, Sozialer Raum und “Klassen”, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1985. His social space only works when thought of as dynamic. See also Karin Barad who notes that correlations have physical reality (see Karen Michelle Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway. Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning, Durham: Duke University Press, 2007).  See also Elkins, The Object Stares Back. On the Nature of Seeing, 43 – 5. He describes the interdependence between object and observer as a fusion. I would not go so far as to say that the object changes, because there is a kind of material presence in the object, although to the spectator, it will always appear different.

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as such relationships can be established anew with each writing, adding further connections to a network. Conceiving of this relationship also as associations ‘volumises’ the Spatial Art History. To illustrate it with a geometric form, it is not only a circle, but allows to consider this correlative relationship in networks or rather meshworks, as the latter emphasises their growth (rather than a preconfigured form) and connection points that are interwoven with each other.⁷⁴ Unlike a circle, a meshwork is not only volumised but open in order to consider the construction of ‘real’ social life through objects that form a number of associations. This can be illustrated with an installation by Gego to clarify what is meant with a Spatial Art History and its two aspects mentioned above (Fig. 1.1). The artist’s installation forms a network that shows associations between nodes (in Gego’s case, steel rods hooked into each other); these are the spaces between things characterised by their materials, which can be described in view of their spatial configuration. The analysis of the net corresponds with the first aspect mentioned above that conceives of anything as having spatial dimensions. However, this would only mean to consider things and their relations to each other, but not really use network as a method. The latter (and second aspect mentioned above) can be illuminated with a reference to Gego’s work, namely by considering the visitors walking around and within Gego’s net; these illustrate the actual meaning of space in a Spatial Art History, namely the distancing between the visitors and the art work, between the ‘subject’ and the ‘object.’ Depending on where the visitors stand, they see the network in a different light, therefore form new associations with the art work; without the artwork or the visitor, there would be no spacing; therefore, this relationship is correlative. The relationship between visitor and art work, is, however, perceived as spatial, can be ‘measured’ by distance, is further away or closer together. Furthermore, depending on the visitors’ perspective (and this is taking on the first meaning of spacing again, namely the network as object of investigation), the net appears around certain nodes to be more dense and around other nodes less dense.⁷⁵ Likewise, one can consider that several visitors standing next to each other form more associations with the net. One can therefore also

 For a detailed analysis of a differentiation between net and mesh, see Jutta Vinzent and Tim Ingold, ‘Representations on the Line. From Lines as Geometrical Form to Lines as Meshwork rather than Network,’ in: Dorsch and Vinzent (eds.), SpatioTemporalities on the Line. Representations—Practices—Dynamics, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2017, 13 – 9.  In quantitative network analyses, one speaks of distancing that is characterised like this. See Max Arends, Josef Froschauer, Doron Goldfarb and Dieter Merkl, ‘Comparing Art Historical Networks,’ Leonardo, vol. 46, no. 3, 2013, 279.

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Fig. 1.1: Gego, Reticulárea, 1969, Fundación de Museos Nacionales, Caracas, Venezuela

conclude that there are denser and lighter associations between the net as thing and the visitors. What is not represented by the work is the interpreter who draws the associations (in this case me). Furthermore, the relationship between the visitors (as intersubjectivity) is not visible. One would need a thing, such as an interview, in order to describe their relationships to each other. Indeed, things make visible social relations. Moreover, as the installation is limited by the gallery room in which the installation takes place, what is also not represented is that the associations are thought of as endless as well as relational. Nevertheless, the work illustrates in a number of ways what is meant with space in a Spatial Art History, which, so to speak, volumises research, allowing for a multiplicity of connec-

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tions rather than a one-way and linear understanding that can be illustrated with a two-dimensional form such as a circle.⁷⁶

Fig. 1.2: Alfred Barr, Cubism and Abstract Art, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1936 (book cover)

Projects already applying aspects from the Spatial Art History In taking such an approach to things which produce and reproduce space, the methodology is therefore aligned to Lefebvre. Latour takes it further in offering a theory which is very useful in first, providing a close relationship between art

 See, for example, the analysis of the circle as a geometric form in the Outlook of this book.

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and society and second, in offering a structure that helps put into practice an open approach that assumes the society created by objects is multi-dimensional. An application of ANT theories to art history has only more recently found consideration (though without reference to space), indicating the topicality of the methodology.⁷⁷ Networks have played a role in some projects in the discipline. The closest to the suggested Spatial Art History is an approach that was carried out by Inventing Abstraction. 1910 – 1925, an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 2012– 13.⁷⁸ Unlike the well-known evolutionary model of Cubism and Abstract Art by Alfred Barr (Fig. 1.2), the exhibition visualised abstract art in a diagram that focused on the relationships between artists (Fig. 1.3). In other words, it spaced the artists. The diagram looked like a net with a multitude of relationships and nodes of condensations rather than an arrow-like, one-dimensional, linear approach. Unlike the illustration, that is fixed, the actual diagram allows one to click on nodes, so that new networks as hyperlinks pop up, showing another level and another perspective onto the artists’ network.⁷⁹ Being based on quantitative research data, however, it also has its limits, including a confusing representation and a fixed relationship that says little about the character of the relationship, aspects often named as problems of quantitative network theory approaches. Therefore, a spatial methodology may well be applicable to such approaches. However, the example of this book, along which the Spatial Art History is developed, is based on qualitative methods. This decision is also based on the crucial requirement of a spatial methodology to consider the relationship between ob-

 See, for example, Francis Halsall, ‘Actor-Network Aesthetics. The Conceptual Rhymes of Bruno Latour and Contemporary Art,’ New Literary History, vol. 47, no. 2– 3, 2016, 439 – 61; Amani Maihoub, ‘Thinking through the Sociality of Art Objects,’ Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, vol. 7, no. 1, 2015, 257– 82; McNeill, ‘Art Without Authors: Networks, Assemblages and “Flat” Ontology’ (mentioned already above); Michael Zell, ‘Rembrandt’s Gifts: A Case Study of Actor-Network-Theory,’ Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art, vol. 3, no. 2, 2011, 1– 25 and Thomas Hensel and Thomas Schröter, ‘Die Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie als Herausforderung der Kunstwissenschaft,’ Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft, vol. 57, no. 1, 2012, 5 – 18.  See Leah Dickerman and Matthew Affron (eds.), Inventing Abstraction, 1910-1925. How a Radical Idea Changed Modern Art, exhibition catalogue, Museum of Modern Art: New York, 2012.  See https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/inventingabstraction/. As such, networks cannot properly be represented in book form; indeed, such illustrations may be even misleading, as they do not show the multi-dimensionality of nets, demonstrated by the inclusion of an illustration and the link to the website here.

Fig. 1.3: Inventing Abstraction. 1910 – 1925, interactive map (detail)

30 1 Introduction: Circle, Space and a Spatial Art History

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jects (things) and the social, a feature that provides food for thought on how it could be considered by quantitative approaches.⁸⁰ In this way, it is also unlike a digital cluster analysis, for example the pilot study of art exhibition catalogues from Nazi Germany to identify groups of artists depending on how often their works were jointly included in exhibitions. It brings to the fore ‘the tendency towards a more centralized art politics after 1937.’⁸¹ The project argues that National Socialism and Fascism put an end to modernism in Germany; however, what was not immediately destroyed were the relationships between artists. This approach also displays a closeness to methods developed by Applied Digital Technology, which means that much data was involved in finding the result. While this is valuable in itself as an outcome, I however, suggest combining a cluster analysis with qualitative research. However, not entirely in the way that MoMA undertook it in their exhibition in 2013, which offers more content as a result than Papenbrock’s project, providing information on artists, their exhibits and connection with other artists. In this way, one presents history as continuous and dynamic instead of separated fields. An emphasis is based on the visual representation of closer and more distant artists/themes/exhibitions. Furthermore, it provides an insight into structures and collaborations. Nevertheless, a cluster analysis is a quantitative research method, while this book will provide an analysis that is qualitative, analysing the characteristics of the connections between the ‘nodes’ of a network itself and the nodes of a network in the production of the social, both thought of as a spacing from each other.

Summary and relation to this book To sum up, a Spatial Art History would take account of the following: it would form associations between art object (things) and social relation in a way that

 For quantitative approaches in Art History, see John F. Padgett and Christopher K. Ansell, ‘Robust Action and the Rise of the Medici, 1400-1434,’ American Journal of Sociology, vol. 98, no. 6, 1993, 1259 – 319. They have put maps on top of each other and found overlaps. These have led Padgett and Ansell, who were one of the firsts to conduct a qualitative network analysis, to be able to explain the rise to power of the Medicis in the fourteenth century by showing where and how marriage, economic and patronage networks overlapped. With the assistance of network analysis, they were able to show that political centralisation can result from social networks of peoples’ actual lives rather than institutions, groups and goals. More importantly, they were able to show that such shifts towards and away from the centralisation of power can occur without the intention of the network group.  See Martin Papenbrock and Joachim Scharloth, Informatics (data driven analyses of art related data), no year provided: http://www.informartics.com/.

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puts emphasis on the production of the social through the art object. It would further emphasise spatial aspects in art by exploring objects in view of space, focusing on a spatial understanding of the art object and foregrounding spatial dimensions such as place and location. Moreover, it would consider art objects (things) as a network rather than in their singularity or one-directionality. In other words, it is not an entirely new methodology, but uses aspects already developed in spatial methodologies, social art histories and network theories and changes emphases from the artist as creator to the object/things that create the social, binding both closely together. What is new is the conglomeration of aspects concerned with space that has so far been considered diverse. Furthermore, this section is consciously entitled ‘Towards a Spatial Art History’ in order to highlight its investigative nature rather than a fully developed new methodology. Its various strands will be probed in the following chapters, when exploring Circle and concepts of space, particularly in Circle, and evaluated in the final chapter.

1.4 Research Questions and Argument The basis of a Spatial Art History is that space is thought of as having to be constructed instead of the assumption of a container understanding of space. Therefore, a Spatial Art History is a constructive methodology. This book argues that the latter idea has already been contemplated in spatial theories and practices in modern art, particularly by Naum Gabo in his essay published in Circle which can be related to ideas developed in Constructivism, not only in architecture (for which literature exists), but also in painting, sculpture and design, as well as in art and perception theory before it was taken up by those whose writing is considered under the Spatial Turn. In the latter sense (an argument which will be outlined further), this book is therefore historical. At the same time, it also tries out the methodology, not only in terms of textual material primarily, but also regarding sculpture, both which are seen as things that act, and thus it uses space in a twofold manner: as a topic in modern art and as part of a methodology which emphasises the production of the social through art objects and through a process of spacing. Although this is the premise, things, the social, and their relationship to each other need to be qualified. Therefore the book will inquire into the following questions: 1) Art objects (things) as spatial constructions: In which way do art objects exists as spatial dimensions? What types of space do they create and what re-

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lationships between things are brought to the fore regarding space? In addition, what spatial concepts existed during a particular time? How does (modern) art shape social relations? How do art works, published and unpublished material on aesthetic ideas (understood as things) produce relationships? For example, how does Circle as a publication bring to the fore social relations and what kind of social relations are these? How do things make visible migration or other social ruptures? How do theories and practices inform, shape and reshape social relations?

With these questions in mind, Circle and its surrounding field are used as a case study to probe the methodology. I argue that the planning and compilation of the book Circle demonstrates that Circle initiated associations and networks between artists, editors and publishers. The initiation of objects is the constructive step in a spatial art history, namely that the thing creates social relations and makes social relations visible. It also assumes of the artist as a social being, who does not think and work in isolation, and of art works and ideas as the outcome of collaborations. I would further suggest that these networks were not about assimilation (acculturation), separation or integration, concepts that presuppose a given social context in which the artist or idea is placed, but rather, they focus on the relationship as a performative act between ‘migrant’, such as Gabo and Mondrian, and ‘habitant’, including Moore, Hepworth, Nicholson and Read, who are not understood as ontological entities, but as actors that participate equally in creating Circle in particular and art in Britain in a more general sense. This book will open up a space of intersubjective relations,⁸² arguing, however, that constructive and constructivist art bring to the fore such relations.⁸³ Relevant will be the activity as well as the question as to what kind of thing brought forward what kind of relationship.

 See Claire Bishop, ‘The Social Turn. Collaboration and its Discontents,’ Artforum International, vol. 44, no. 6, 2006, 178 – 83. See also Claire Bishop, Artificial Hells. Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship, London: Verso, 2012 and Claire Bishop, Participation, London: Whitechapel, 2006. Although Bishop refers to ‘intersubjective relations’ in the light of relational art practice and socially engaged participatory art, her findings can also be applied to a methodology, as illustrated above.  Such an approach also takes into account Harrison White’s thesis in which he argues that persons emerge from relationships. See Harrison C. White, Identity and Control. A Structural Theory of Social Action, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992. For example, a leader is not only a leader because of certain attributes, but because of having followers. In a similar vein, Constructivism and concrete art could be understood as an idea formulated and circulated because certain people came together.

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Fig. 1.4: Stephen Bann (ed.), The Tradition of Constructivism, London: Thames and Hudson, 1974

It thus allows to consider constructive and constructivist art not only as the product of a linear history of cause and effect, but extends the net further. Stephen Bann has already drawn a diagram of Constructivism, considering events on constructive art happening at the same time in different nation-states and influencing each other in various ways, by providing space for coincidences, detours and chance (Fig. 1.4).⁸⁴ Therefore, it also does not take its starting-point with constructive art works, as has been undertaken by Krauss’ Passages in Modern Sculpture and Alex Potts The Sculptural Imagination (the latter mentioned above), both books that also consider space and the artist. However, a Spatial Art History would spread out to concentrate not only on constructive sculpture, but on writings on constructive art that are usually only considered as a contextual feature to art objects and movements. Moreover, it would emphasise that these writings and objects space, bring to the fore, social relations—rather

 See Bann, The Tradition of Constructivism, s.p. He has produced a timeline similar to that of Alfred Barr but in view of Constructivism and with the edition of geographical considerations, therefore locating Constructivism in a place-time line, but not as a network of unlimited associations.

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than investigating social relationships as a (mere) adjunct to analysing ideas and works. Such a methodology is not without problems and limitations, particularly that of arbitrariness. These shortcomings as well as the gains of a Spatial Art History will be outlined in the last chapter.

1.5 Scope Taking Circle as a starting-point, this book will look at a variety of concepts of space developed as part of the constructive idea by exploring the sources of these concepts and comparing them with each other, opening up associations to other movements. In addition, the book will probe the methodology, as described above, applying it to a number of things. These things derive from those which are relevant in and to Circle, namely art publishing, exhibitions, sculpture and painting. Because of the limitation of the book, it will focus only on the book Circle, concepts of space and sculpture. Apart from published literature, the book is based on archival and unpublished material held at, among others, RIBA at the National Art Library (London), Tate Collection (London) and Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Yale University).

1.6 Structure This investigation considers Circle as a magnifying glass for gaining insight into concepts of constructive space of a number of internationally renowned and lesser known abstract and constructivist artists and art critics in the first half of the twentieth century. It does not claim to be comprehensive or argue that the topic of space could only be considered through an analysis of Circle, although it will show that Circle brought together like-minded artists and led to the dissemination of the idea of constructive space through books and exhibitions. By probing the spatial methodology suggested above, this monograph conceives of the book Circle not as a product of a certain group who acted as editors because of being geographically united, but as an actor itself that created an international network, and thus asks how and what kind of relationships and social life Circle formed. Constructive art is therefore thought of as creating and reshaping social relations. Chapter Two will trace the planning, the publication and the reception of Circle. It will bring to light the network formed through Circle that was wider than that which was finally realised in the published version of Circle. Such an inves-

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tigation not only provides an insight into Circle as it appeared, but also considers the possibilities which Circle had to offer. It conceives of Circle as the product of negotiations and compromises rather than an authoritative, stand-alone book. Such a perception is supported by considering the reviews of Circle. Furthermore, the investigation into Circle will foreground the qualities of the network it formed, the dense and light relationships between editors, contributors, publishers and reviewers. Chapter Three traces the way in which space plays a topic in Circle. Its main focus will be on Naum Gabo, whose essay illustrates clearly the difference between container-like space and its opposite, that respectively are termed by Gabo as space as enclosed and open. As in the first chapter, here the network of people held together by different concepts of space will come to light. Therefore, the ideas of space as constructive will be traced in the other essays to the book, namely those by Barbara Hepworth and Herbert Read who both explicitly refer to space. It will emerge that similar ideas are particularly evident in those who also worked in proximity to each other, namely Gabo, Hepworth and Read. This does not only refer to aesthetic ideas, but also to art works, such as the use of strings in sculptures by Gabo and Hepworth, seen as the product of personal and professional relationships underpinned by a layer of sharing the every-day at that time. The concluding chapter evaluates the spatial concepts’ relevance in terms of socio-politics. Apart from an aesthetic function as outlined in the first chapters, space was understood as having a social function. Gabo believed that ‘we only know what we do, what we make, what we construct; all what we make, all that we construct, are realities.’⁸⁵ If reality is (hu)man-made, the artist creates new realities with his art. Art, being constructed (and not representing reality), has a social function, because it creates a new reality. This idea is rooted in a Marxist understanding of art as something which not only impacts on society, but creates society. However, it will be argued that the concepts of constructive artists in 1930s Britain remained more closely related to idealism or a realism understood as the opposite of functionalism (and thus differs from Russian Constructivism which encouraged a functional art in the 1920s) and, in Read’s case, to anarchism, defined by Read in 1938 as the ‘devolutionary types of communism’ (as opposed to Marxism which, for Read, designated ‘the centralized totalitarian conception of communism’).⁸⁶ As Michael Paraskos argues for Read,  Naum Gabo, cited after Herbert Read, The Philosophy of Modern Art, New York: Horizon, 1953 (first published in 1952), 94.  See Herbert Read, Poetry and Anarchism, Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1972 (first published 1938), 23

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the ‘opposition to Marxism grew in response to the suppression of freedom in the Soviet Union in the 1930s.’⁸⁷ The concepts of space thus confirm the canonical differentiation between ideal and functional constructivism, but highlight that, if space is understood as open, the functionalism of Russian Constructivism would be understood as too limiting. As all of the artists and art critics discussed in the previous chapters are considered modern, the last point of the final chapter will look at the relationship of space to modernism. Which function do spatial concepts have in the discourses to modernism? And what does the analysis of the 1930s along the concepts of space mean for an art history that is defined as spatial? Furthermore, having probed the spatial methodology in these chapters, the conclusion will evaluate the ways in which such a methodology differs from the perception of constructive art so far. It will critically inquire into the benefits and the pitfalls of a Spatial Art History and suggest how a Spatial Art History changes existing analyses of art.

 Michael Paraskos, ‘The Curse of King Bomba or How Marxism Stole Modernism,’ in: Paraskos (ed.), Rereading Read. Critical Views on Herbert Read, London: Freedom Press, 2007, 44– 57, 46.

2 Associations between the Planning, Publication and Reception of Circle This chapter explores the associations formed in the planning, publication and reception of the book Circle. Such research is significant because it will bring to the fore not only a tighter link between Circle and social life and thus probe the methodology outlined in the Introduction, but also show Circle’s social relationships and the book’s relevance in and beyond Britain which in turn helps view Constructivism and constructive art in the West in a new light, namely of numerous relationships formed through a net of correspondence, that is based on proof instead of assumption. This chapter is further significant as the analysis of the publishing process of Circle provides a detailed insight into modern art publishing from an editorial perspective, shedding light on organisational, economic and marketing aspects, topics rarely discussed in scholarship so far.¹ As already mentioned in the Introduction to this book, Circle has not received much attention yet.² One of the reasons may well be that it has been ar-

 Monographic scholarship on art publishing in Britain around the time of the publication of Circle has so far only provided short overviews of art publishing. See, for example, John Feather, A History of British Publishing. London: Routledge, 2006. There are, however, books covering the periods either before or later, including Katherine Haskins, The Art-Journal and Fine Art Publishing in Victorian England, 1850-1880. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012; Anna Nyburg, Émigrés. The Transformation of Art Publishing in Britain, London, 2014 and Anna Gough-Yates, Understanding Women’s Magazines. Publishing, Markets and Readerships, London: Routledge, 2003. For the Edwardian time, see also the enlightening article on the relevance of the idea of art as language through which to study different types of viewers by Sophie Hatchwell, ‘The “Language of Painting”: Aesthetic Appreciation in Edwardian Art Criticism,’ Visual Resources, vol. 33, no. 3 – 4, 234– 51.  So far the only book-length secondary source concentrating solely on Circle is Jeremy Lewison’s edited exhibition catalogue titled Circle and published in 1982 as part of an exhibition at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, which had just had an extension built that was designed by Martin, one of the editors of Circle. According to an exibition review, the show consisted of a replica of a room which contained furniture and curtain fabrics designed by contributors to Circle, which Farr called a ‘mock-up of a Circle interior’ (Dennis Farr, ‘Cambridge, Kettle’s Yard Circle: Constructive Art in Britain 1934-40,’ The Burlington Magazine, vol. 124, no. 951, 1982, 378 – 80, 380). The exhibition included works illustrated in Circle, including Gabo’s Stone with Collar (1933) and John Piper’s Abstract I (1935). There was also an architectural section that did not only display photographs of buildings illustrated in Circle, but also four models of buildings that were not all represented in Circle but expressed the ‘constructive idea.’ See Nicholas Bullock, ‘Circle and the Constructive Idea in Architecture,’ in: Lewison (ed.), Circle. Constructive Art in Britain, 1934-1940, exhibition catalogue, Kettle’s Yard: Cambridge, 20 Feb. to 28 March 1982, 33 – 7, 83. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110595338-003

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gued that Constructivists were in the minority, being overshadowed by Surrealism and a Realism in the tradition of the Euston School in the 1930s.³ If considered, Circle has been seen as a ‘manifesto’ of the constructive idea but also as ‘representative of current trends’,⁴ related to 1934 to 1940, a period of the ‘the first grouping of “modern” artists and architects under Paul Nash’s prompting which saw the light as Unit One in 1934 [… and] with the final dispersal of the Hampstead-based “nest of gentle artists” in 1940.’⁵ Scholarship has discussed Circle’s focus on architecture, the most established field regarding constructive ideas at the time with contributions by architects already well known, Circle’s context of major cultural and politico-economic developments of the late thirties in ‘England’, including a discussion on exhibitions, and its links between art, science and education.⁶ Jane Beckett shows in particular that Circle presents (rather than represents) a modernist ideology ‘that stands in a direct relationship to “the whole social order,” but which was fractured within English culture by the time Circle was published.’⁷ So far, only Leslie Martin has provided an overview of the ideas behind Circle based on his memory, which finds many resonances in the archival material researched below, including the emphasis on the ‘constructive idea’ and on illustrations.⁸ None of the publications, however, have inquired into Circle’s relationships with contributors and publishers, an analysis noticed as a gap in scholarship already by Beckett in 1982.⁹ Such an inquiry is here based on the spatial approach suggested in the Introduction. As an edited book, Circle already signals formally the involvement of a number of people who took part in this process of planning, publishing and reviewing Circle. In line with the research questions noted in the Introduction, it will view Circle as a thing and investigate what kind of social relations were brought to the fore by the publishing process and how the book in turn produced relationships. This chapter will therefore show that Circle was not only planned, published and reviewed by a number of people forming a network of editors,

 See Farr, ‘Cambridge, Kettle’s Yard Circle: Constructive Art in Britain 1934-40’.  For the latter see Frances Spalding, British Art since 1900. London: Thames & Hudson, 1986, 113 and for the former, see Read, ‘A Nest of Gentle Artists’, 7.  Farr, ‘Cambridge, Kettle’s Yard Circle: Constructive Art in Britain 1934-40’, 380.  See Bullock, ‘Circle and the Constructive Idea in Architecture’; Jane Beckett, ‘Circle. The Theory and Patronage of Constructive Art in the Thirties,’ in: Lewison (ed.), Circle. Constructive Art in Britain, 1934-40, exhibition catalogue, Cambridge: Kettle’s Yard, 20 Feb. to 28 March 1982, 11– 9 and John Gage, ‘Art and Life, in: Lewison (ed.), ibid., 20 Feb. to 28 March 1982, 43 – 6.  Beckett, ‘Circle. The Theory and Patronage of Constructive Art in the Thirties’, 11– 19.  See Leslie Martin, ‘Introduction,’ in: Lewison (ed.), Circle. Constructive Art in Britain, 19341940, exhibition catalogue, Kettle’s Yard: Cambridge, 20 Feb. to 28 March 1982, 9 – 10.  See Beckett, ‘Circle. The Theory and Patronage of Constructive Art in the Thirties’, 18.

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contributors and publishers, but also how this network was created by the planning of Circle. Unlike more typical investigations into book publications, this chapter will not only characterise the network spanning beyond Circle as finally published, but also view illustrations as a critical part of publications on modern art, as they not only helped circulate and make known art works but also added to the network surrounding such publications. Furthermore, as the social network is one that involved a number of émigrés from Nazism, this chapter is also a contribution to scholarship of migration that has concentrated on the way artists travelled (or had to migrate) or brought ideas and art works from the continent to Britain (émigrés and the English alike), and formed old institutions anew (such as the Bauhaus or the Warburg Institute), but which has paid little attention to publications as creating networks that went beyond national frontiers regardless of the place where the émigrés lived.¹⁰ In view of network theories, migration, indeed, any move, of both individuals and objects could be considered as a guarantor for networks, as its force assures the production of new associations and thus stabilises through constant change the forming and transforming of such networks. Hence, this chapter provides new associations regarding the process of publishing and its reception, necessitating the use of archival material.¹¹ It will call attention to a much larger network, spanning beyond the geographical borders of Britain. And last but not least, it will prepare the discussion of a topic not discussed so far in the other publications, namely of concepts of space undertaken in the next chapter, arguing that, in this respect, Circle stood in the middle of a

 See, for example, Burcu Dogramaci and Karin Wimmer (eds.), Netzwerke des Exils. Künstlerische Verflechtungen, Austausch und Patronage nach 1933, Berlin: Gebrüder Mann Verlag, 2011, a book which explores networks of émigrés from National Socialism regarding ideas (though not spatial conceptions), art production, art associations and patronage. It considers networks as the outcome as well as the driver of these and therefore is different from books such as that of Caitlin E. Murdock, Changing Places. Society, Culture, and Territory in the Saxon-Bohemian Borderlands, 1870-1946, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010.  The most prominent archives for Circle are the RIBA archive, London (papers of Leslie Martin), the Tate Archive, London (papers of Ben Nicholson) and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. The Faber Archive, which holds the papers of the publishing-house Faber and Faber, holds documents to Circle that were, however, not available at the time of writing this book. According to an email from the archivist at Faber and Faber to the author in February 2019, the Faber Archive functions only as a private business archive and will be closed for ‘scholarly enquiry for several years at least, due to a major conservation and cataloguing project. Unfortunately, material of that date is still uncatalogued and stuck in a remote store.’ The Leslie Martin Collection at the Faculty of Architecture and History of Art, University of Cambridge contains mainly books, many of which have been cited in the bibliography of Circle.

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wider net of art theories and practices that employed a notion of space as open and constructive.

2.1 Forming the Idea for Circle Most of what we know about Circle stems from Jeremy Lewison’s exhibition catalogue Circle. Published in 1982, Lewison was still able to interview some of those involved in the publication of 1937. According to him, Circle was planned during the summer of 1936. Literature published since 1982 has brought further memories into the published sphere. In her autobiography, Margaret Gardiner remembers the following about her friend Barbara Hepworth: Circle was, in fact, born in a tea shop where Barbara, Ben and Gabo had gone to restore themselves one day in 1936 after viewing the Surrealist Exhibition, and where they decided that they absolutely had to do something to clear the air. Out of that tea-time talk and many later discussions with friends came the decision to produce a book of contributions from artists whose common basis was the constructive trend in contemporary art, a book with the dual purpose of bringing the work before the public and of giving the artists a means of expressing their views and of maintaining contact with each other. Gabo, Ben and their architect friend Leslie Martin (J. L. Martin) undertook the editing and in 1937 this significant and influential book was published.¹²

Such recollections are based on memory and, therefore, need to be taken cautiously; as Gardiner herself writes, ‘memory both veils and fails, selects and interprets, glosses, distorts.’¹³ Nevertheless, it was, indeed, Gabo, Martin and Ben Nicholson who were named as editors on the cover of the published Circle. What preceded these events described by Gardiner was that Gabo and Miriam Israels, whom he would marry in London, had come to London from Paris through the help of Nicholson and Hepworth in 1936, as described in detail in her second chapter. Alice Dewey recounts how the relationship between Hepworth, Nicholson and the Martins had come about.¹⁴ According to her, Hepworth and Nicholson had met the Martins in 1934. It was Nicholson who wrote to Leslie Martin in April 1936, inviting him to the private view of the Abstract and Concrete exhibition (held in 1936), where he would introduce him to Gabo, who had contributed some of his works along with Nicholson and Hepworth. Continuing to

 Margaret Gardiner, A Scatter of Memories, London: Free Association Books, 1988, 185.  Ibid., 195.  See Alice Dewey, ‘Construction through a Plane by Naum Gabo,’ Burlington Magazine, vol. 144, no. 11, 2002, 755 – 6, 755.

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cite from Nicholson’s correspondence, Dewey does not relate the beginning of Circle to the Surrealist exhibition, but rather implies that the original idea for the review was developed in discussions between Gabo and Nicholson. In a letter dated 30 May 1936, Nicholson wrote to Leslie Martin: Gabo and I have been discussing the necessity and possibility of producing an annual international review of architecture, painting and sculpture, giving their constructive developments each year in relation to one another. It occurred to us that an architect—to represent architecture (Gabo [will look after]—sculpture, [and] myself—painting), would much better complete the three which we considered an ideal number to edit the review. This quite naturally led to us thinking of you as not only being an architect, but one of the few people who understands quite clearly the basis of this development today.¹⁵

This would mean that the idea for Circle was formed earlier than the Surrealist exhibition. Nevertheless, what all of the sources have in common is that they stress that Circle was developed as part of a discussion rather than by one person only. In other words, Circle is not the product of an individual, but of discussions between artists whose ideas are closely related.

2.1.1 Circle in light of Surrealism: Associations between Constructivism and Surrealism in Britain The International Surrealist Exhibition was held at the New Burlington Galleries in London from 11 June to 4 July 1936 and is widely recognised as introducing Surrealism in Britain, as it was the first Surrealist show on the isle. As already mentioned above, there are several publications discussing Surrealism in Britain, a topic which achieved attention particularly in the 1990s. Alexander Robertson’s exhibition catalogue focuses particularly on technology and politics.¹⁶ Michel Remy’s book provides the most detailed examination into artists, publications and exhibitions.¹⁷ For the following analysis, most relevant are his sections on Henry Moore, ‘Publications and Meetings’ and the ‘International Surrealist exhibition.’ Thus, this literature not only underpins the following analysis, but also had already compared Surrealism and Constructivism. The following

 Ben Nicholson, Letter to Leslie Martin, Edinburgh, 30 May 1936, unpublished, Private Collection, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, cited after Alice Dewey, ‘Construction through a Plane by Naum Gabo,’ Burlington Magazine, vol. 144, no. 11, 2002, 755 – 6, 755.  See Alexander W. Robertson, Surrealism in Britain in the Thirties. Angels of Anarchy and Machines for Making Clouds, exhibition catalogue, Leeds: City Art Galleries, 1986.  See Michel Remy, Surrealism in Britain, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999.

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can therefore concentrate on the analysis of the exhibition—mainly through the exhibition catalogue and a review published in the International Surrealist Bulletin in 1936¹⁸—in view of Circle and its editors and contributors, an association not brought forward so far. By conceiving of exhibits as single objects produced by artists who form a network, the following will argue that the intention of the editors, particularly of Gabo and Nicholson but also Hepworth, who are said to have met after the exhibition, was to publish something in contrast to Surrealism. However, it will be shown that art works appeared under both labels and people involved supported both directions, commonly known as Surrealism and Constructivism. The editors’ aim to dissociate themselves from Surrealism seems to be an aim only, as some ideas apparently conceived as being different, are actually closely related to each other. The editors’ aim should not be understood as a negative association (as if they did cut off any relationship to Surrealism), but can be understood as spacing between ideas, namely as an attempt to increase the distance between Surrealism and the editors of Circle, and as such having the force of producing something new, namely Circle. According to the catalogue, the exhibition was curated by Hugh Sykes Davies, David Gascoyne, Humphrey Jennings, Rupert Lee and Diana Brinton Lee, Henry Moore, Paul Nash, Roland Penrose, Herbert Read and E. L. T. Mesens together with a French organisation committee consisting of André Breton, Paul Éluard, Georges Hugnet and Man Ray, E. L. T. Mesens from Belgium, Vilh. Bjerke-Petersen from Scandinavia and Salvador Dalí from Spain.¹⁹ The catalogue mentioned on its introductory pages that the exhibition showed 392 works by 58 artists from 14 countries, seemingly underpinning the international and wide-spread reputation of Surrealism. Among the artists were Constantin Brâncuşi, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Alberto Giacometti, Paul Klee, René Magritte, Joan Miró, Wolfgang Paalen (a friend of Penrose and co-ordinator of the transport of the works from Paris),²⁰ Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray and Max Ernst.²¹ Exhibits included Meret Oppenheim’s fur-covered cup, saucer and spoon Object (1936, Museum of Modern Art, New York) and

 See Andre´ Breton and Herbert Read (eds.), The International Surrealist Exhibition, exhibition catalogue, London: New Burlington Galleries, 11 June to 4 July 1936 and Editorial, ‘The International Surrealist Exhibition (review),’ International Surrealist Bulletin, vol. 4, Sept. 1936, 1– 2.  See Breton and Read (eds.), The International Surrealist Exhibition, s.p.  See Roland Penrose, Letter to Frances Carey, 16 Sept. 1982, unpublished, Valentine and Roland Penrose Papers, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Library, Archive and Special Books Collection, Edinburgh.  See Candida Ridler, The David Gascoyne Notebook (transcribed interview), 2008, unpublished, British Library, London.

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Paalen’s first fumage Dictated by a Candle that represented a ghostly hand performing the act of painting (1936, location unknown). According to Candida Ridler, 1936 was the year of the found object or objet trouvé, a term with which the Surrealists described unaltered objects viewed as works of art that allowed access to the subconscious. Found objects could be manifold, including natural ones or those used in everyday life. Artists in Britain such as Eileen Agar and Paul Nash became interested in this concept. It may also have provided a source for abstract and constructive artists such as Barbara Hepworth and Naum Gabo, who began using natural stones in the late 1920s (Hepworth) and in the early 1930s (Gabo).²² Unlike Agar and Nash, they may have used these to distance themselves from Surrealism, as Hepworth and Gabo were interested in their materiality and the possibility for kinetic expression found in nature but emphasised by sculpting the objects—rather than a subconscious interpretation without changing the object as such. The exhibition was opened by Breton before 1,150 people and proved to be very popular, with about 23,000 visitors altogether and several critical reviews in major newspapers, orchestrated through the exhibition committee.²³ The accompanying exhibition catalogue was translated from French by David Gascoyne and Herbert Read. Both together with Penrose have been accredited as the initiators of introducing Surrealism to Britain. Photographs and essays of the exhibiting artists appeared in the September issue of the English-French journal International Surrealist Bulletin. ²⁴ Despite the attempt to differentiate between Surrealism and constructive art, particularly by Gabo,²⁵ there were contemporaries who thought of both movements as complementary and equally valuable in their own rights, such as Barbara Hepworth, as shown by Penelope Curtis,²⁶ and Herbert Read who contributed an essay to both the exhibition catalogue and Circle. He also gave the second of five lectures that ran alongside the International Surrealist Exhibition, advertised as Art and the Unconscious and held on 19 June 1936.²⁷ Reported to  For a detailed discussion, see Chapter Three.  See Remy, Surrealism in Britain, 74– 6, 78 and 96. A review of the exhibition mentions that there were ‘about two thousand people’ at the opening and 1,000 per day of the exhibition. See Editorial, ‘The International Surrealist Exhibition (review)’, 2.  See Editorial, ‘The International Surrealist Exhibition (review)’. Photographs of the exhibition and exhibition opening are also held by the Tate Archive, London.  See Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 235.  See Penelope Curtis, ‘The Landscape of Barbara Hepworth,’ Sculpture Journal, vol. 2, 1998, 106 – 12, 108 – 9 and 111.  See Editorial, ‘The International Surrealist Exhibition (review)’, 2. The other lectures were given by Breton titled Limites non-frontières du Surréalisme (16 June); Paul Éluard spoke about

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have been delivered standing on a spring sofa,²⁸ Read presented a topic on which he had written as early as 1925.²⁹ This was a review of a book, widely read at the time of its publication, with the same name, subtitled A Psychological Approach to a Problem in Philosophy and published by John M. Thorburn in 1925. The review does not refer to Surrealism or constructive art, but to Worringer and critiques Thorburn’s treatment of art as the outlet of the unconscious.³⁰ According to Read himself, the lecture was about the establishment of the psychological basis of Surrealism.³¹ Read also gave a speech at a debate on Surrealism organised by the Artists’ International Association (AIA) at the Conway Hall in London on 23 June. This speech has been printed in the International Surrealist Bulletin, in 1936. Concentrating on the political position of Surrealism, he emphasises that Surrealism is not an ‘entertainment’ but a ‘revolutionary action.’³² He argues vehemently that, if ‘reality is to be our aim, then we must include all aspects of human experience, not excluding those elements of subconscious life.’³³ Possibly also inclined to please his audience, as it was an event by the AIA, known for its left-wing politics, Read expresses the influence of Marx on Surrealism to demonstrate the art movement’s socio-political relevance, which, as he agrees, is not an ‘organic connection.’ However, insisting that society is a totality, he puts forward that there cannot be any art ‘divorced from the general social development.’³⁴ Such a clear political stand is in contrast to the much less political text which Read published in the exhibition catalogue. By the time he gave his speech, Read had encountered the audiences’ mockery of the exhibition, which he interpreted as a result of a misunderstanding of the exhibits. Therefore, Read put an emphasis on the political meaning of the exhibition in his speech. La Poésie surréaliste (24 June); Hugh Sykes Davies on Biology and Surrealism (26 June), extracts of which were published in the International Surrealist Bulletin, 4, September 1936, 7– 13 and Salvador Dalí on Fantômes paranoïaques authentiques (1 July), which was the most unusual of these lectures. According to Lara Thompson, the artist ‘caused a furore when he stepped on stage and began to deliver his lecture in a full deep-sea diving suit. Only minutes later, a shocked audience watched with a mixture of horror and disbelief, as he began to suffocate and had to be prised out of the helmet with pliers.’ See Lara Thompson, The Surrealist Exhibition, London: (http:// www.luxonline.org.uk/histories/1900 -1949/the_surrealist_exhibition.html).  See Remy, Surrealism in Britain, 77.  See Herbert Read, ‘Art and Unconscious,’ International Journal of Ethics, vol. 36, no. 3, 1926, 305 – 8.  For more on Read, see Chapter Three (3.3).  See Herbert Read, ‘Speech by Herbert Read at the Conway Hall,’ International Surrealist Bulletin, vol. 4, Sept. 1936, 7– 13, 8.  Ibid. The speech was published in English and French.  Ibid.  Ibid., 9.

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Taking also into account that the exhibition catalogue was geared towards a more general public rather than a group particularly interested in politics, as the AIA was, provides some explanation for the differences in Read’s approach to Surrealism. Furthermore, some of the same artists had their works illustrated in both Circle (in the painting and sculpture sections) and the catalogue of the Surrealist exhibition: these were Hans Arp, Constantin Brâncuşi, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp, Alberto Giacometti, Paul Klee, Henry Moore (who also contributed an essay to Circle) and Pablo Picasso. While Remy argues that Moore felt closer to Surrealism than Constructivism in general, he also cites the sculptor as having said in 1936 that the ‘violent quarrel between the Abstractionists and the Surrealists seems to me quite unnecessary.’³⁵ According to the title of artwork, year of production or lender listed in the publications, none of the works are identical.³⁶ In fact, the painting section in Circle reproduced earlier works by the same artist (usually 1910s compared to 1930s in the Surrealist show), while the sculpture section mentioned works from a later period (1920s and 1930s compared with 1910s and 1920s). This suggests that either the selection for the sculptures was more up-to-date with contemporary sculpture than the exhibition catalogue or that early painting and later sculpture were more suitable for representing constructive art, while Surrealism developed in sculpture first and only later in painting in the eyes of those selecting the works for Circle and the International Surrealist show. In any case, the comparison demonstrates that Surrealist and constructive art were not entirely separated by artists, but, if at all, by periods of artists’ works, underpinning a distancing between two styles and ideas, but not a complete dissociation of the two. Moreover, several common ideas were proposed in the catalogue to the International Surrealist Exhibition and in Circle. These include the belief in art’s influence on society,³⁷ without, however, references to concrete measures or con-

 Henry Moore, quoted after David Sylvester in Henry Moore and David Sylvester (eds.), Henry Moore, exhibition catalogue, London: Tate Gallery, 17 July to 22 Sept. 1968, 2. See Remy, Surrealism in Britain, 71.  Moore’s exhibited sculpture was reproduced in Editorial, ‘The International Surrealist Exhibition (review)’, 5 in addition to works by Humphrey Jennings, Rupert Lee, Paul Nash and Roland Penrose.  See John Summerson, ‘The MARS Group and the Thirties,’ in: Bold and Chaney (eds.), English Architecture Public and Private. Essays for Kerry Downes, London: Hambledon Press, 1993, 303 – 10, which explores the group’s architectural aims and social ideals. Those publications on Realism and the communist strands in the 1930s also do not refer to space regarding utopian aims (see Lynda Morris, ‘Realism. The Thirties Argument. Blunt and the Spectator, 1936 to 1938,’ Art Monthly, no. 35, April 1980, 3).

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temporary politics.³⁸ In his contribution to the catalogue, Breton speaks of ‘the necessity of expressing internal perception visually.’³⁹ In Circle, Gabo claims that non-representational forms could directly engage with the viewer’s perception: ‘By the influence of an absolute form the human psyche can be broken or moulded.’⁴⁰ Hepworth wrote that there is a ‘spiritual vitality of inner life which is the real sculpture.’⁴¹ Thus while Breton on the one hand and Gabo and Hepworth on the other were interested in perception and representation, Breton understood perception in terms of the viewer’s ‘imagination’ and ‘memory’ and as internal to the viewer.⁴² This view is further away from those of Gabo and Hepworth, for whom the object as the creator of perception was central, as also shown in detail in the chapters below. Moreover, the views expressed in the Surrealist exhibition and in Circle demonstrated a belief in the artist being able to change the world. Read’s essay published in the exhibition catalogue speaks of Surrealism as being ‘defiant—the desperate act of men too profoundly convinced of the rottenness of our civilisation to want to save a shred of its respectability.’⁴³ Circle had an entire section dedicated to ‘Art and Life’ and called its art constructive. Its editorial proclaimed that a ‘new cultural unity is slowly emerging out of the fundamental changes which are taking place in our present-day civilisation.’⁴⁴ In terms of space, Surrealists were interested in spatial conceptions, though this is not reflected in this exhibition catalogue. For most Surrealists, it was conceptually defined as other than the rational, as well as physical space. André Masson seems to have been different, though only in the 1940s and 1950s, when he took a particular interest in space, which he described as dynamic and compared it with that in Chinese painting. According to Masson, for the Asian painter (he refers to Ying Yu-Kien from the twelfth century), space is nei-

 This is different from the First Manifesto of English Surrealism written in London in May 1935 and published in French by David Gascoyne in Cahier d’Art, no. 5 – 6, 1935, 106. Gascoyne proposes a political standpoint, pledging alliances to dialectical materialism, the proletarian revolution and to the fight against fascism. See Remy, Surrealism in Britain, 71.  For Surrealism, see André Breton, ‘Preface’, Breton and Read (eds.), The International Surrealist Exhibition, 7– 8.  See Naum Gabo, ‘Sculpture. Carving and Construction in Space,’ in: Gabo et al. (eds.), Circle. International Survey of Constructive Art, London: Faber and Faber, 1937, 102– 11, 110.  Barbara Hepworth, ‘Sculpture,’ in: ibid., 113 – 7, 115.  See André Breton, ‘Preface’, in: Breton and Read (eds.), The International Surrealist Exhibition, 8.  See Herbert Read, ‘Introduction’, in: ibid., 13.  Editorial, ‘No title,’ in: Gabo et al. (eds.), Circle. International Survey of Constructive Art, London: Faber and Faber, 1937, v-vi, v.

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ther outside nor within, it is a play of powers—a sudden showing, an emergence.⁴⁵ While in Chinese painting, painter and picture plane are in movement, the abstract painter stands in front of the plane, ordering certain elements. Abstract painting thus assumes a given space, that of the plane, while Chinese painting produces space. Such an understanding shows close associations with Gabo’s concept of space as open as outlined below in Chapter Three (3.1). It also, however, draws awareness to the resources of those editing Circle, which were rather Eurocentric. Read writes in Circle that the ‘prior and more fundamental the elements which are used, the acuter and purer is our emotional awareness of “space.”’⁴⁶ Comments like this one have inclined David Thistlewood, who wrote extensively about Herbert Read’s work, to suggest space as a bridging concept for the abstract and the so-called ‘superrealists’, which, according to Thistlewood, Read set out first in his contribution to Circle. ⁴⁷ In later writings, such as in Icon and Idea (1955), Read critiqued the Surrealists’ lack of considering the constructive power of space (outlined further below). Indeed, for artists including Gabo, Hepworth and Nicholson writing in Circle, space was understood as being constructed by the art work, as also explained in detail below in Chapter Three. This suggests that some aspects contribute to distancing Circle from Surrealism, but not with respect to the construction of space, as this was not really discussed in the catalogue of the Surrealist exhibition. Thus, the topic of space seemingly is a more genuine concern of constructive art than of Surrealism.

 André Masson, ‘Divagations sur l’espace,’ Les Temps Modernes, vol. 44, no. 4, July 1949, 961– 72, 966. Masson uses the word ‘surgissement’. For space as dynamic, see André Masson, Métamorphose de l‘artiste, Geneva: Pierre Cailler, 1956. See also Dieter Rahn, Raumdarstellung und Zeitbezug in der Malerei. Zur Kunst und Kunstgeschichte Andre´ Massons, Mittenwald: Mä ander, 1982. The Chinese painter Ying Yu-Kien does not seem to have been widely known at the time and today compared to Mi Youren (1086 – 1165), whose father Mi Fu (1051– 1107) was the painter after which the style ‘Mi Fu’ (which involves the use of large wet dots of ink applied with a flat brush) is named.  See Herbert Read, ‘The Faculty of Abstraction,’ in: Gabo et al. (eds.), Circle. International Survey of Constructive Art, London: Faber and Faber, 1937, 61– 6, 65.  David Thistlewood, Herbert Read. Formlessness and Form, London: Routledge, 1984, 83. See also below.

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2.1.2 A Series Named Circle. Review for Constructive Art In the letter to Martin of 30 May 1936, the first written evidence in which Circle was mentioned, Nicholson speaks of an ‘international review’.⁴⁸ Indeed, the publication was called a Review in all archival documentation related to Circle, probably because the journal Axis had as its subtitle ‘A Quarterly Review of Contemporary “Abstract” Painting & Sculpture.’ The letterhead of a (draft) letter dated 15 November 1936 confirms the title under which the book would appear, although the subtitle would change from ‘Review’ to ‘Survey’ at a later stage, as well as the final editors, namely Circle. International Review of Constructive Art with J. L. Martin, Ben Nicholson, N. Gabo as editors.⁴⁹ The publication was described as ‘an international review of creative work in the field of building and the arts’ on 20 November 1936.⁵⁰ According to Martin, Circle was thought of being published as a series or journal with one issue or three issues each year, which seems, however, unlikely or extremely ambitious in view of the efforts put into the first publication at the planning stage and the final size of Circle with over 250 pages. Its publication is conventionally considered as the third in a series of journals and books relevant to abstract art in 1930s Britain: Unit One, appearing in 1934, was followed by Axis, with eight instalments from January 1935 to early winter 1937. Subtitled ‘A quarterly review of contemporary “abstract” painting & sculpture’, Axis had a particular emphasis on abstract painting and sculpture. Lewison, who edited the 1982 exhibition catalogue on Circle, views Circle as a replacement particularly of Axis, but with  Nicholson, Letter to Leslie Martin.  See Sadie Speight, Letter (draft) to Mondrian, 15 Nov. 1936, unpublished, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936 – 8), RIBA, London.  See Sadie Speight, Letter (draft) to Robert Maillart, Hull, 20 Nov. 1936, unpublished, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936 – 8), RIBA, London: ‘We are attempting to publish, early in the new year, an international review of creative work in the field of building and the arts, and have been wondering, whether you would allow us to illustrate some of your work in our first number? We have been most interested to see your work in the recent issue of ‘Transition’ and we feel that our review would be incomplete if it did not contain some illustrations to represent your very important contribution in the development of modern design. I very much hope that you will allow us to illustrate your work; if you are willing to do this could you possibly let us have a few photographs together with any notes or diagrams which you may consider necessary as soon as possible? You may be interested to know that our contributors so far include Gropius, Roth, Giedion, Neutra, Breuer, Lubetkin, Fry and several others. Sweeney, (editor of ‘Transition’) is also writing for us. I shall be very glad if we are able to add your name to this list. May I take this opportunity of saying how much I appreciate your work and of sending my very best wishes. Yours sincerely, [no signature].’ The punctuation follows the original.

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a move in focus from abstract to ‘constructive’, a term which seemed to Lewison to be ‘loose enough to encompass the leading abstract artists’, for whom ‘constructivist’ would have been too restricting.⁵¹ This ‘replacement’ could only be thought of in terms of content, as the planning of Circle began a year before the final issue of Axis was actually published. In their publication on Gabo, Hammer and Lodder argue that it was the ‘English group’ that established the preference of ‘constructive’ over Constructivism, because the term reflected an attitude of mind rather than membership of a school.⁵² Gabo himself stated in an article published in The Listener in 1936 that constructive art referred to a certain aspect of art production that superseded ‘abstract’ and ‘concrete’, and was also different from the Russian utilitarian approach to art termed Constructivism, a term that, for Gabo, was imposed by critics rather than chosen by the artists themselves.⁵³ According to Martin’s memory, Circle was intended to focus on painting and sculpture that was not decorative, but concentrated ‘around the attempt to construct the work of art, in whatever material, into some sense of wholeness and coherence of form’.⁵⁴ Descriptions such as ‘realism’, ‘sur-realism’, ‘abstract’ or ‘non-representational’ seemed ‘to be inadequate’ because these terms focused on form, denying any content. Circle aimed to ‘achieve a clarification and to demonstrate by illustration, examples of a particular attitude of mind.’⁵⁵ The analysis above shows that the first ideas about Circle were the outcome of a series of negotiations about the title and aim of the publication. It was planned as an annual journal and envisaged to have several issues, a plan that was not realised in the end, as discussed below. Named ‘review’ with a focus on the ‘constructive’ idea, the group attempted to dissociate its content and themselves from Surrealism, but in fact, Surrealism was not only a creative force behind the publication Circle, but also not as distant as often constructed.

 Jeremy Lewison, ‘Foreword,’ in: Lewison (ed.), Circle. Constructive Art in Britain 1934-40 exhibition catalogue, Cambridge: Kettle’s Yard, 20 Feb. to 28 March 1982, 5 – 6, 5.  See Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 240.  See Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner (co-signed), ‘The Realistic Manifesto (1920),’ in: Hammer and Lodder (eds.), Gabo on Gabo. Texts and Interviews, Forest Row: Artists Bookworks, 2000, 21– 35, 22. I will come back to the differences between the terms in Chapter Three.  See Martin, ‘Introduction’, 9 (in the 1982 publication to Circle).  Ibid.

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2.2 Planning Circle The idea of a publication on constructive art, encompassing abstract and concrete works, conceived in May 1936, quickly took form, as evidenced by Minutes of the editorial board meetings and three reports of the meetings written for the editors. According to these sources, a preliminary meeting in which ‘the formation of an international review of painting, sculpture and architecture’ was discussed took place on 20 June.⁵⁶ Two further meetings were held from 10 to 13 July and again from 15 to 19 August 1936.⁵⁷ These three seem to have been the only ones where the editors came together in person. The first and third meetings were held at the Mall Studios no. 7 in Parkhill Road in Hampstead, which was the studio of Barbara Hepworth at that time.⁵⁸ The second meeting took place in Hull at the home of the Martins, who lived there because of Leslie Martin’s headship at the School of Architecture at the University of Hull from 1934. Handwritten notes by Martin, recording achievements and further tasks between meetings, suggest editorial gatherings on 17 November and 10 December, but there is no further evidence as to whether these latter two meetings took place. While the core planning was seemingly undertaken in editorial meetings, where the editors met in person to discuss fundamental directions of Circle, the reports, minutes and the letters in the Leslie Martin archive demonstrate that most of the work for the publication was based on an extended correspondence. It therefore sug-

 See Sadie Speight, Report No. 1 (meeting 20 June 1936, 7 Mall, Parkhill Road, Hampstead), Hull (8 The Park), 1 July 1936, 2 pp, unpublished, Naum Gabo Papers [Box 32 ‘Circle. Planning of (1936 – 1937)’], Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Sadie Speight, Report No. 2 (meeting 10 to 13 July), Hull (8 The Park), 1 August 1936, 5 pp, unpublished, Naum Gabo Papers [Box 32 ‘Circle. Planning of (1936 – 1937)’], Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Sadie Speight, Report No. 3 (meeting 15 to 19 August 1936, 7 Mall, Parkhill Road, Hampstead), no place provided, 1 September 1936, 3 pp unpublished, Naum Gabo Papers [Box 32 ‘Circle. Planning of (1936 – 1937)’], Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The reports have seemingly only survived in papers to Gabo, as there are no reports in the Hepworth or Nicholson papers at the Tate Archive, London.  See Sadie Speight, Minutes of Editorial Board Meetings 20 June (Hampstead), 10 to 13 July (Hull) and 15 to 19 August 1936 (Hampstead), 17 pp, unpublished, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936 – 8), RIBA, London.  See ibid. For the studio occupation, see Alison Yarrington, Marjorie Trusted, Jonathan Wood and Anne Compton (eds.), Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, https://sculpture.gla.ac.uk. The map legend provided in Art in Britain 1930 – 40 Centred around Axis, Circle, Unit One, 9, identifies no. 7 with Walter Gropius and no. 8 with Hepworth, which is wrong. According to the website of the Hepworth estate (https://barbarahep worth.org.uk/biography/), Hepworth occupied no. 7 from 1928 to 1939.

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gests that Circle is primarily the result of a written network, as argued in the following sections that are based on the Editorial Board Minutes, abbreviated in the following as ‘June Minutes’, ‘July Minutes’ and ‘August Minutes’.

2.2.1 Editorial Board Members and their Tasks According to the Minutes, Naum Gabo, Ben Nicholson and Leslie Martin were involved from the beginning of Circle. In the first documented meeting, it was decided that Nicholson should represent painting, Gabo sculpture and Martin architecture (June Minutes). Furthermore, in case of differences in opinion about the contributions, the June Minutes regulated that at least two will need to agree on the editing of the paper, demonstrating a democratic approach of members who consider each other as equals. Apart from these three, whose names also appeared on the cover of the published book, the following were involved: Sadie Speight, an architect and designer in her own right, who had just married Leslie Martin the year before, was the secretary and treasurer from the beginning, being addressed as Sadie Speight. She typed the Minutes and was also to ‘submit a report to each editor on the first of every month’ according to the June Minutes. Gabo was one of those who received such reports (altogether three), which have already been mentioned above. It is clear, from the letters to Mondrian in particular, that Speight did most of the correspondence which mainly dealt with formal issues, such as deadlines, but also corrections and recommendations from the translators. She therefore played an important role in the production of Circle. It is also thanks to her that I can use Minutes and reports to reconstruct the planning of Circle. In addition to Speight, Barbara Hepworth is said to have been responsible for layout and reproductions, though the Minutes and reports do not reflect that she undertook these particular functions.⁵⁹ Indeed, the Minutes note that the ‘Editors’ (capitalised in the original) would select the photographs.⁶⁰ Speight’s contribution is very typical for a woman at that time: her work in the background but without being an editor demonstrates that Circle was not solely a male production, but one which used personal relationships with women to obtain support in seemingly less relevant matters. Thus while the three editors Gabo, Martin and Nicholson dealt with each other on the same level, as mentioned above, they used the support of a woman—whom they ac-

 See Abraham Marie Hammacher, Barbara Hepworth, London: Thames and Hudson, 1987, 76.  See Speight, Report No. 1 (meeting 20 June 1936, 7 Mall, Parkhill Road, Hampstead), 1.

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knowledged at the end of the publication Circle as part of a list of others to thank⁶¹—but formally did not consider her voice as equal in the decisions on editing papers. Having started with an equal position written down in the first Minutes, particularly the tasks listed in the Minutes provide the impression that, of the three main editors, Ben Nicholson was probably the least involved, while Martin and Gabo had many more errands, though one also needs to consider that this may not reflect reality, but rather the fact that Martin’s wife wrote the Minutes and Martin added handwritten notes. Nevertheless, for November 1936 Martin listed tasks for himself (such as proof-reading, getting photographs and chasing contributions) and Gabo (including sending questionnaires and cabling contributors), but not for Nicholson. This leads to the impression that Circle was mainly the product of Gabo, Martin and Speight, and to a lesser degree that of Nicholson and Hepworth.

2.2.2 Financial and Legal Arrangements during the Planning Stage Financing Circle was of utmost importance for the editors. The Minutes of the first Editorial Board meeting in June list the following: 1. Credit involved must be the result of a unanimous decision by the editors. 2. An expenditure of three pounds to cover notepaper etc. was approved. 3. It was decided that all profit should be used to pay off debts or, if no such payments were necessary that it should be put into reserve for amplification to contributors or to relieve contributors of the cost of paying for stocks.

Apparently, the publication did not have an official sponsor, but was based on debt and the money provided by those involved. In the August Minutes, it was noted that the editorship must be registered. In addition, the Board decided that contributors should pay for the block of their illustrations, that receipts should be kept and that a leaflet should be printed and circulated as soon as possible in order to attract subscribers or those who would provide financial support to the journal. According to the August Minutes, three people were already willing to become subscribers. Among them was Albert Eugene Gallatin (1881– 1952), who founded the Gallery of Living Art in New York in 1927 (renamed

 See [Editors], ‘Acknowledgements,’ in: Gabo et al. (eds.), Circle. International Survey of Constructive Art, London: Faber and Faber, 1937, s.p. and this chapter below for details on the others in the list.

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as Museum of Living Art in 1936) and collected abstract works. The editors might have known him through the artist Jean Hélion (1904– 1987), a member of Art Concret and a founder of the Abstraction-Création group, who acted as an advisor to Gallatin, but who was also approached by the editors to contribute to Circle to which he had agreed by 22 July 1936.⁶² These financial arrangements demonstrate that Circle was planned as a long-term endeavour, drawing upon resources from New York and Editorial Board members themselves. To advertise Circle, the editors also planned to have circulars and postcards. By 26 July 1936, Nicholson had arranged with a New York agent to distribute 5000 ‘circulars.’ In the August Minutes, it was noted that no circulars should be sent out before approval by the publisher. It is unknown when it was finally sent out, but the circular consisted of a copy of the cover page followed by three illustrations from Circle representing painting, sculpture and architecture.⁶³ These illustrations were followed by an ordering slip which suggests that it may have been circulated shortly before the publication in 1937.⁶⁴ Furthermore, the editors planned the printing of postcards in support of the publication, for which the advertisement slip could be traced.⁶⁵ There were two sets of seven postcards each, priced at 1/6 or 50 cents in the USA for which the following artists were selected: Series 1 consisted of works by Duchamp, Gabo, Hélion, Hepworth, Mondrian, Nicholson and Pevsner, and Series 2 of Jackson, Lissitzky, Malevich, Moholy-Nagy, Morton, Stephenson and van Doesburg. While each set was a mixture of medium, the first series contained work of two of the three editors, suggesting a high interest in self-promotion. The publishing-house Faber and Faber would also distribute leaflets of Circle shortly before publication.⁶⁶ Although it is unknown as to how many of these sets were sold and circulars and leaflets distributed, they clearly underpin that the editors and the publish-

 See Leslie Martin (or Sadie Speight), Letter (copy or draft) to Mr Mumford, typescript, no date (most likely shortly before 22 July 1936, the date on the response letter of the publishing-house), unpublished, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936 – 8), RIBA, London.  These illustrations were works by Duchamp (painting section), Pevsner (sculpture section), and Gropius and Fry (architecture section) and reproduced in Circle as figs. 10, 13 and 21.  See N.N., Circular/Pre-Order Form for Circle. The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936-8), RIBA, London, undated.  See Advertisement card of a series of Circle postcards, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936 – 8), RIBA, London.  See Ben Nicholson, Letter to Marcel Breuer, 15 July [1937], unpublished, typescript, Marcel Breuer’s personal and literary correspondence while in London, 1936 – 1937, 2 folders in the Collection Francis Reginal Stevens Yorke (Ref nos. YoF/1/2 and YoF/2/2), RIBA London.

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ing-house attempted to achieve as much as possible out of Circle, both financially and in circulation and advertising of the book.

2.2.3 The Contributors In the first recorded meeting, it was decided that Circle ‘should be issued annually and should have a basis of permanent contributors. Any decision with regard to approaching permanent contributors must be unanimous’ (June Minutes). These permanent contributors ‘should have no say with regard to the general policy of the review, though their ideas if good might of course be assimilated.’ In other words, permanent contributors were considered most relevant for Circle but stood, so to speak, on a lower level than the editors Gabo, Martin and Nicholson. In the same meeting the Board agreed on the following permanent contributors: the only woman mentioned was Hepworth. The others included the art critic and friend Herbert Read, the architects Walter Gropius and the American-French Paul Nelson (1885 – 1979), the painters Jean Hélion, Piet Mondrian and Antoine Pevsner (Gabo’s brother), and the French-Russian choreographer and ballet dancer Léonide Massine (1896 – 1979). Ben Nicholson suggested the Swiss abstract painter and designer Hans Erni and the Swiss architect Alfred Roth, who worked with Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret and was included as a contributor by 23 August. All of these sent either illustrations or a text to the final publication of Circle. A further list of ‘possible permanent contributors’ was discussed in June but the question of the selection of architects was not finally settled and was to be considered again at the next meeting. The allocation of artists was seemingly based on personal relationships and artistic profession: architects were mainly given to Martin, sculptors to Gabo and painters to Nicholson. Suggestions were made for artists, curators and art critics based in or connected with Britain, France, the Bauhaus in Germany, the Netherlands, the Soviet Union (all Constructivists) and the USA (except for Alvar Aalto from Finland and Josef Havlíček from Czechoslovakia). In terms of style, those being asked were known as Bauhausler or related to the Bauhaus (including International Style and Functionalism), Neoplasticists, De Stijl members as well as Constructivists, though the list does not provide any nationality or any other information, and in most cases even no first name. After all, these were Minutes that were brief. Gabo was to ask several people he knew from former exhibitions and his time in Germany and Russia, either personally or through them promoting him. These included the director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York,

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Alfred Barr, and the curator at the same museum, James Sweeney (1900 – 1986); Ernst Kállai (1890 – 1954), who wrote the first substantial article on Gabo, published in i10, an avant-garde journal edited in Amsterdam by Arthur Müller;⁶⁷ and ‘Hildebrant,’ which may be a misspelling and likely refers to the art critic and promoter of Bauhaus Hans Hildebrandt (1878 – 1957), the author of a series of books of which one was dedicated to the art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He ends his history of modern sculpture with a full-page interpretation of Gabo’s work (represented through the reproduction of a sculpture design that should function as a pilot’s signal), in which he sees the true representation of Constructivism, while Malevich and El Lissitzky only represent derivations (‘das Abgeleitete’).⁶⁸ For Hildebrandt, Constructivism is foremostly an idea of volume, and thus with sculpture the artist does not have to overcome the plane of a painting. Other names on Gabo’s list of people to approach included the architect Berthold Lubetkin, who had helped stage the The First Russian Art Exhibition in Berlin 1922, to which Gabo had contributed several works;⁶⁹ El Lissitzky, whom Gabo knew from his time in Berlin; the architect André Lurçat;⁷⁰ Jean Gorin, a neo-plasticist and constructive sculptor, whom Gabo must have got to know in France; as well as Constructivist architects from Russia, such as Moisei Ginzburg; Alexander Vesnin, whom Gabo knew from as early as 1919, when they planned an exhibition together, and Vladimir Tatlin, who had inspired Gabo to experiment with real materials in space as early as 1921.⁷¹ Except for Lubetkin, El Lissitzky and Tatlin, whose work were illustrated in the final publication, the others did not contribute for reasons unknown. Those who should have been approached by Leslie Martin were the prominent Dutch architect Cornelis van Eesteren (1897– 1988); Gerrit Rietveld (1888 – 1964), who belonged to the De Stijl group; the Finnish architect, designer, sculptor and painter Aalto (1898 – 1976); the Czech Josef Havlicek (correctly spelled Havlíček, 1899 – 1961); the Austrian-American Richard Neutra (1892 – 1970) and

 See Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 147 and 152. Kállai also edited the autumn 1928 issue of the Bauhaus journal with Meyer; see Hammer and Lodder, ibid., 165.  See Hans Hildebrandt, Die Kunst des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, Potsdam: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion, 1924, 446.  See Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 108. According to Hammer and Lodder, Lubetkin responded with the suggestion to set a date for a meeting (Hammer and Lodder, 236).  According to the Report no. 3, 1 Sept. 1936, Nicholson had been commissioned to obtain André’s address from Jean Lurçat, possibly because Gabo had not reacted or was unsuccessful.  See Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 58 and 87.

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someone called ‘Staw’ and ‘Bert’, the latter may refer to the architect Alberto Sartoris, member of the CIAM.⁷² Martin was able to convince Aalto, Havlíček and Neutra as well as Sartoris for contributions of illustrations and Neutra for a text, too.⁷³ Ben Nicholson was to approach the Bauhaus artists Marcel Breuer and Jan Tschichold.⁷⁴ Breuer was then formally invited by a letter written on 22 July 1936 signed by Martin.⁷⁵ Although he had the shortest list, Nicholson’s interventions were more successful than those of Gabo and Martin, as both artists wrote an essay for Circle. Thus, while Gabo may have known many artists and art critics, no one he approached (or should approach) contributed an essay to Circle. In the end, Gabo succeeded with three (in form of illustrations), Martin with five (one essay and four illustrations) and Nicholson with two (both essays) of their allocated artists. The July Minutes also suggested to ask F. R. S. Yorke and Maxwell Fry as possible contributors, though not as permanent ones. The August Minutes note that Mondrian had been invited. According to handwritten notes by Martin for 14 October, a person called Septus should be ‘asked to write [an] article probably on the theatre’. Two others were successfully approached for essay contributions to Circle, namely the Russian-born British architect Serge Chermeyeff—of whom the Martins owned a chair and who worked with Erich Mendelsohn in 1933 to form an architectural office⁷⁶—and the Czech architect Karel ‘Honzig’ (a misspelling for Honzík). This is not a full list of those being approached, as responses from contributors suggest that more were asked than noted in the Minutes. Although there may have been the idea of differentiating between permanent and occasional or one-time contributors, in the end, the documented evidence does not support such a split apart from a few exceptions, such as the re-

 See Martin, Letter (copy or draft) to Mr Mumford. For the CIAM, see below.  For Martin, see P. Carolin and T. Dannatt (eds.), Architecture, Education and Research. The Work of Leslie Martin. Papers and Selected Articles, 1996. There are also two contributions without name and title in Architectural Research Quarterly, 4.4, 2000, 295 – 308 and Architectural Research Quarterly, 5.1, 2001, 11– 2.  The following two names were also mentioned: someone called ‘Frankfurt’ and a ‘K. Nicholson.’ This might be the archaeologist Franfort who published an essay on Hepworth in Axis discussed in Chapter Three (3.2).  See Leslie Martin, Letter to Marcel Breuer, 22 July 1936, unpublished, typescript, Marcel Breuer’s personal and literary correspondence while in London, 1936 – 1937, 2 folders in the Collection Francis Reginal Stevens Yorke (Ref nos. YoF/1/2 and YoF/2/2), RIBA London.  See Michael Parkin, ‘Obituary: Sadie Martin,’ The Independent, 27 Oct. 1992, 11 (Gazette Page).

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sponding letters by then assistant editor of the Architectural Review ⁷⁷ James Maude Richards, who was amongst the earliest persons responding to the invitation, namely on 24 July 1936, and Lewis Mumford, known for his writings on urban architecture, who was asked around 22 July 1936.⁷⁸ Richards’ reply supports the argument about the loose handling of permanent contributionship, as he notes that he does not really understand what that means, indicating that the editorial board members did not clarify the role enough.⁷⁹ In other words, permanent contributionship was more an idea that did not manifest itself in the letters or subsequent Minutes after August 1936.

2.2.4 The Correspondence between Editors and Contributors Letters were sent out from July 1936 with contributions to follow until approximately January 1937. For this purpose notepaper was designed and printed. The July Minutes indicate that the editorial board wanted to have a similar ‘notepaper’ in ‘size and quality to that used by Herbert Read. A certain number are to contain list of names of all permanent contributors and a perforation near bottom of sheet forming a space for name and address of possible subscriber, to whom a full prospectus is to be sent later.’ A sample notepaper was returned from ‘Poulk’, a ‘Hull printer’ (presumably a printer from Hull) on 30 July 1936. The August Minutes record that the notepaper was approved ‘in all but minor details’. It seems to have been Ben Nicholson who was principally responsible for this, as he wrote to Martin in August 1936 that the ‘Notepaper proof to be held up until title has been fully considered.’ Indeed, the correspondence between Mondrian on the one hand and Speight and Giedion on the other reveals that a specialised notepaper—with the title and subtitle of the book, the names of the editors and the name and address of the secretary, namely Sadie Speight from 8 The Park, Hull, England—was used by Speight for the letters to contributors. These were variously written in English

 For the signature of J. M. Richards, see J. M. Richards, Letter to Breuer, 17 Nov. 1936, unpublished, typescript, Marcel Breuer’s personal and literary correspondence while in London, 1936 – 1937, 2 folders in the Collection Francis Reginal Stevens Yorke (Ref nos. YoF/1/2 and YoF/2/2), RIBA London.  See Martin, Letter (copy or draft) to Mr Mumford.  See J. M. Richards, Letters to Leslie Martin, 24/7/[36] and 20/12/[36], unpublished, manuscripts, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936-8), RIBA, London.

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and French.⁸⁰ The address stating Hull as the place for Circle also means that the correspondence network was centred in Hull. Amongst the earliest to reply were the architect Richards (24 July 1936, submitting his contribution on 22 Jan. 1937)⁸¹ and, according to the July Minutes, Marcel Breuer, Arthur Jackson, Henry Moore and Nicholette Gray. The August Minutes noted that Mumford had replied by 25 August and that Pevsner agreed to write ‘a short article on painting’. Giedion was noted on 20 November 1936 as having agreed. Although Breuer replied in July 1936 to commit to the journal, it took him until January 1937 to submit the final version of his contribution.⁸² Altogether the process of invitation, response and receiving the contributions took approximately seven months, from July 1936 to January 1937. The invitation letters sent to those being asked for contributions reveal several telling aspects about Circle. The following was written to Lewis Mumford, an American philosopher of technology and author of Technics and Civilization published in 1934, a book which argues that modern technology has its roots in the Middle Ages rather than in the Industrial Revolution. In verbatim: Ben Nicholson (English abstract painter), Gabo (sculptor whose work you will know) and L. [Leslie Martin; added by the author] have been considering for some time now that formation of an international review of constructive art. The review will have as its basis the work of a number of permanent contributors, i. e. people whose work will be illustrated in each number. Several people have already been approached Walter Gropius, Herbert Read, Paul Nelson, Hélion and others have already been kind enough to say that they will write or send illustrations of their work. We have been wondering whether you would be able to spare the time or be willing to write a short note for us, and whether you would allow us to add your name to our list of writers? I am afraid that this is perhaps almost too much to hope. I know, however, that you are able to help us that there are many ideas which we should be most grateful to have developed and a number of comments of great interest which apply very closely to the type of work which we are illustrating. A note on production or the machine and its relation to architecture which you actually mention in an introductory note, or if this is unsatisfactory, there are of course a number of comments of great interest throughout the chapter of the assimilation of the machine and new cultural values which apply very closely to the work which we are illustrating for example the idea in the middle of p. 350 or again on page 358.⁸³

 See Speight, Letter (draft) to Mondrian for French.  See Richards, Letters to Leslie Martin.  See Marcel Breuer and Leslie Martin, Correspondence between Breuer and Leslie Martin (several letters and cards), December 1936 and January 1937, unpublished, Marcel Breuer’s personal and literary correspondence while in London, 1936 – 1937, 2 folders in the Collection Francis Reginal Stevens Yorke (Ref nos. YoF/1/2 and YoF/2/2), RIBA London.  Martin (or Sadie Speight), Letter (copy or draft) to Mr Mumford (no date, most likely shortly before 22 July 1936).

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This letter—most likely a draft version of what has been considered the original, because of its sketchy nature (notes on the side, spelling mistakes and deleted words), and most likely written by Sadie Speight, Martin’s wife (for the familiarity with Leslie, abbreviating his name, while the others are spelled out)—illustrates that Gabo seems to have been known to Mumford, while Ben Nicholson needs explanation. Gropius, Read and Hélion were contributors who were so well-known that they were used as advertisement for the book. As mentioned above, Circle was planned as a series, and the editors had seemingly a precise idea of what they wanted to have as a contribution; Martin even specifies particular sections in Mumford’s book Technics and Civilization, referring to ‘the middle of p 350 or again on page 358.’ These passages are taken from Mumford’s seventh chapter named ‘Assimilation of the Machine’, in which he focuses on a comparison between the mechanical and aesthetic object in light of the impulse that is needed to come from within. Esthetic [sic] interests can not suddenly be introduced from without: they must be constantly operative, constantly visible. Expression through the machine implies the recognition of relatively new esthetic [sic] terms: precision, calculation, flawlessness, simplicity economy. Feeling attaches itself in these new forms to different qualities than those that made handicraft so entertaining. Success here consists in the elimination of the non-essential, rather than, as in handicraft decoration, in the willing production of superfluity, contributed by the worker out of his own delight in the work.⁸⁴

Page 358 also refers to aesthetic perception: ‘those who complain about the standardization of the machine are used to thinking of variations in terms of gross changes […]; whereas one of the signs of a rational enjoyment of the machine and the machine-made environment is to be concerned with much smaller differences and to react sensitively to them.’⁸⁵ He continues to compare handicraft with machine-craft, advocating that the latter cannot be ignored despite the lack of the ‘final touch of perfection’ which handicraft provides. Martin is seemingly interested in Mumford’s critical account of modern machine-age civilisation. This also plays a role in Mumford’s contribution to Circle, which is not taken from this book but still deals with the machine-age. Its focus, however, lies on city planning, which might have been even closer to Martin’s own interests as an architect than the passages from Technics and Civilisation. In ‘The Death of the Monument’, Mumford argues the buildings should be constructed with material and in a ‘fashion that they may be easily renewed and made over’ in order to be

 Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilisation, [S.l.]: Routledge, 1934, 350.  Ibid., 358.

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able to adjust to a society which he perceives of as organic and constantly changing.⁸⁶ Cities should be filled with ‘free life.’ Like in his book, Mumford is interested in a contemporary civilisation that uses new technology for the sake of the human being rather than for itself. This letter also shows that some contributors were invited based on previous publications that the editors mention having read.⁸⁷ For example, Robert Maillart was approached, because he had published in Transition, in which also other invited artists had published. In the case of Mumford, Martin did not know him well enough to write directly, so he had to be reached through his publisher. Others seem to have been known through various organisations, such as Giedion and Maxwell Fry who both attended the CIRPAC meeting in La Sarraz, for which Giedion wrote a report included in Circle. ⁸⁸ According to the ‘Acknowledgements’ in Circle, some of the illustrations were taken from other publications,⁸⁹ suggesting further that the network of contributors spanned beyond close relationships such as friendship and acquaintance; it suggests that the editors were guided by the theme of constructive art rather than by personal relationships only.

2.2.5 Contributors’ Input and Reactions Apart from a network based on correspondence and editorial meetings, one contributor would have also welcomed a verbal exchange: the architect Richards, who contributed a final text on ‘The Condition of Architecture and the Principle of Anonymity’ wished specifically to ‘have the chance of talking to’ Giedion who wanted a contribution from Richards on ‘machine production’, which Richards understood rather literally as ‘factory production, details of methods and ma-

 Lewis Mumford, ‘The Death of the Monument,’ in: Gabo et al. (eds.), Circle. International Survey of Constructive Art, London: Faber and Faber, 1937, 263 – 70.  See Martin (or Sadie Speight), Letter (copy or draft) to Mr Mumford (no date, most likely shortly before 22 July 1936).  See Sadie Speight, Letter to Sigfried Giedion (signed by Leslie Martin), Hull, 20 Nov. 1936, unpublished, manuscript, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936 – 8), RIBA, London: ‘Dear Dr. Giedion, I wonder if you have yet had time to write your article on the CIRPAC Congress for our review? Would it be possible for you to let me have your notes before the 5th of next month? We are trying to collect all our material before that date and I hope to be able to let you know soon the date of publication. I enjoyed reading, by the way, your very interesting article on Maillart in Transition. With very best wishes, Yours sincerely, J. L. M.’  For details, see below.

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chines’ and thus felt ‘unqualified’ to write on.⁹⁰ Whether such a conversation took place is not documented in the Minutes, suggesting that the editors did not intervene. Contributors also offered to expand the network of contributors. According to handwritten notes by Martin that should be included in the August Minutes, Lubetkin offers to ‘approach Corbusier’. This demonstrates active involvement from contributors who also offered to use their networks in order to make Circle a successful publication. Furthermore, contributors voiced their opinions about the editors’ approach. Richards wrote on 24 July 1936: By the way I notice you say you are not opposing any existing periodicals. I am glad to hear that and do trust you are working with rather than against our good friends of Axis. Perhaps your approach is quite different and anyhow I am sure you have worked out your position thoroughly. Only feel so much that, the people seriously engaged in constructive modern work and expression being, so relatively few, it becomes all the more important to avoid any kind of split within the movement or any duplication of effort.⁹¹

Generally this demonstrates that those who contributed were very co-operative, which also goes for Gropius, who provided a ‘rearranged part of a rather unknown larger article, which I recently did for the Educational Year Book (Lord Eustace Percy).⁹² Authors also suggested their own essay titles and content; for example, according to the August Minutes, Mumford replied ‘to say that he will submit a part of his unpublished work ‘The Culture of Cities’, a book which appeared in 1938 as part of his series on ‘Renewal of Life’, of which also Technics and Civilization, which Martin had read, was part. Mumford further suggested that his article should be called ‘The Death of the Monument,’ which, indeed, is identical to the published title. Another example is Marcel Breuer’s letter, dated 4 Aug. 1936 and written as a response to Martin who had asked to contribute something ‘on new constructive methods in furniture’:⁹³ ‘I don’t quite like the idea of writing an article about furniture for the first issue because I do not regard furniture as a separate problem but merely as part of a building and, personally, I do not want to make propaganda for myself as a furniture designer. It would therefore only be possible for me to write about furniture as a more technical

 See Richards, Letters to Leslie Martin (letter of 24 July 1936).  See ibid.  See Walter Gropius, Letter to Leslie Martin, 4 Nov. 1936, unpublished, typescript, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936 – 8), RIBA, London.  See Breuer and Martin, Correspondence between Breuer and Leslie Martin (several letters and cards), (letter to Breuer, 22 July 1936).

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part of a longer article.’⁹⁴ In the end, in Breuer’s essay, published in the architecture section and titled ‘Architecture and Material’, it becomes evident that furniture is a part of architecture, particularly in view of using the same material including steel and glass. However, despite writing that he does not want to advertise his own work, his essay with 24 drawings and photos of houses, his tables and chairs is by far the most richly illustrated essay in the entire final publication.

2.2.6 The Contributions and the Editorial Work In addition to the organisational work, the editors also made suggestions as to the content of contributions. For example, Leslie Martin recommended in a letter to Berthold Lubetkin, who was a Russian-born architect, living in Berlin and arriving in London in 1931, to write ‘something about town planning in Russia. I hesitate to suggest a definite title, but would something on those lines be suitable for you?’⁹⁵ The tone of the letter suggests that Martin had a vision of Circle already in mind, although he showed openness towards the contributor. This openness supports the argument that the book is a product of negotiations. In this case, however, Martin failed partly, as Lubetkin did not contribute a text, but submitted three images of contemporary architecture under the authorship of Lubetkin and Tecton [Group], the name of the architectural firm which Lubetkin had co-founded together with Francis Skinner, Denys Lasdun, Godfrey Samuel and Lindsay Drake in 1932 and which has been accredited for bringing modernism to Britain. Printed in the architecture section of Circle, these comprise a photograph and architectural plan of the elephant house at Whipsnade Zoo at Dunstable in Bedfordshire, built in 1935, which was their second commission; a photograph and the ground floor’s architectural plan of a bungalow in Whipsnade erected in 1936 and a model of the penguin pool for the zoo in Birmingham (which was actually the zoo in Dudley, nearby Birmingham) dated 1936 to 1937. These buildings were typical in their modern style as well as their functions, particularly the zoo architecture, for the Tecton Group. In

 See ibid. (letter to Leslie Martin, 4 Aug. 1936).  Leslie Martin, Letter (copy) to Lubetkin, 3 Dec. 1936, unpublished, typescript, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936 – 8), RIBA, London. For Lubetkin, see John Allan, Berthold Lubetkin. Architecture and the Tradition of Progress, London: RIBA Publications, 1992; Peter Coe and Malcolm Reading, Lubetkin & Tecton. An Architectural Study, London: Triangle Architectural, 1992 and John Allan and von Sternberg Morley, Berthold Lubetkin, London: Merrell, 2002.

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other words, Circle printed illustrations of typical modern architectural buildings. Apart from new essays, some of the written contributions were slightly altered reproductions of text already published in other places. These include not only Gropius’ essay on ‘Art Education and State’ mentioned above, but also Karel Honzík’s ‘Note on Biotechnics.’ Around the time that Honzík was approached for a contribution to Circle, this essay had just been published in the July/August issue of The Concrete Way, a journal on British engineering which appeared between 1928 and 1937. As such, the readership may well have been very different from Circle, so that no overlap was to be feared. These reproductions were a quick way of gaining contributions, although they did not necessarily provide a specifically unique one for Circle. They explain, why Circle has been seen as representing current trends rather than as a publication with a strictly unifying idea, as outlined at the beginning of this chapter. On the other hand, these reproductions create further associations between Circle and the literature in which these articles had appeared before, listed in the bibliography of Circle. Leslie Martin also took responsibility for editing essays. According to his handwritten notes within the November Minutes, Winifred ‘Nicholson’ (who actually published her contribution to Circle under her maiden name ‘Dacre’) had submitted her article on 19 October. For November (without any precise date), Leslie wrote down that he should read and comment on her article. Having contributors from Russia, France and Germany as well as Britain constituted a challenge regarding European languages. This is with respect to writing and not to understanding a language other than English, as, for example, Mondrian also corresponded in French. Therefore, the editors employed translators in addition to Speight who was responsible for two essays by Eduardo Westerdahl and Sartoris published in Spanish in the Gaceta de Arte, of which in the end only one was published in English, namely that by Sartoris. The other translators were mentioned under authors on the cover page of the book, treating them the same as authors. This does not apply to Speight nor Erich Roll, who were, however, thanked in the acknowledgements, the latter for his ‘translations and his readiness to assist in all matters of language difficulty.’⁹⁶ P. Morton Shand, on the other hand, features on the front page. A friend of Martin and critic whom Martin had also invited to lecture at his School in Hull, Shand translat-

 [Editors], ‘Acknowledgements’.

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ed Maillart’s contribution, most likely submitted in German,⁹⁷ and Giedion’s essay on ‘Construction and Aesthetics’ from German. As to the process of translation, the Mondrian correspondence is an excellent example. The August Minutes note that Mondrian had agreed to write for Circle. A letter from Giedion dated 15 Dec. 1936 indicates that the first half of his contribution had been translated (though no name of the translator was given).⁹⁸ A (draft) letter of 15 Nov 1936 in the name of Speight (living at 8 The Park, Hull, England) informed Mondrian that the first half had already been translated.⁹⁹ In Mondrian’s case, the editors negotiated between the authors and translators: ‘The translators ask me to say that they have tried to keep the structure of the sentences but that this has been difficult to render in English, especially in the first few pages.’¹⁰⁰ The letter continues, encouraging Mondrian to read the translation and make ‘suggestions and corrections which you may think necessary and they will, of course, be only glad to incorporate them.’¹⁰¹ Indeed, Mondrian wrote back in French on 9 Jan. 1937, suggesting a few changes, because Gabo and Nicholson had also looked through the Mondrian text and written to him.¹⁰² Eleven days later, Mondrian wrote to the Martins again, mentioning that neither Gabo nor Nicholson had further got back to him: Dear Mr. and Mrs., Because I have yet not had a response from Nicholson and Gabo, I believe it is better to send to you the copy that Gabo sent to me more than a week ago. I hope they have not caught the flu and soon find my changes which I told you about in my pre-

 See Leslie Martin, Letter to Dr Giedion, 10 Dec. 1936, unpublished, typescript, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936 – 8), RIBA, London. Shand also translated Marcel Breuer’s lecture ‘Garden City of the Future’, which he gave to the Polytechnic Architectural Society held at the School of Architecture in London on 2 December 1936, a lecture invitation which Breuer accepted in a letter dated 4 August 1936. See Marcel Breuer, Morton Shand and Gooding, Phillip, Correspondence between Marcel Breuer, Morton Shand, Phillip Gooding (from the Cement and Concrete Association), Nov. 1936, unpublished, several typwritten letters, Marcel Breuer’s personal and literary correspondence while in London, 1936 – 1937, 2 folders in the Collection Francis Reginal Stevens Yorke (Ref nos. YoF/1/2 and YoF/2/2), RIBA London.  See Leslie Martin, Letter (draft) to Mondrian, 15 Dec. 1936, unpublished, manuscript, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936 – 8), RIBA, London.  See Speight, Letter (draft) to Mondrian.  See ibid.  See ibid.  Piet Mondrian, Letter to Leslie and Sadie Martin, Paris, 9 Jan. 1937, unpublished, manuscript, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936 – 8), RIBA, London (9 Jan. 1937). The content of these changes will be discussed in Chapter Three.

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vious letter. Could you send to me, meanwhile, the copy of the first part with the small changes proposed? Best regards from Piet Mondrian.¹⁰³

These letters demonstrate that the translation of Mondrian’s contribution was achieved by a negotiation between editors, translators and author, whereby the editors played the key role, as the contact was with the editors and not directly between translators and author. Not all contributors seem to have taken such an interest with the translation, however. Breuer’s text in German is a direct translation into English,¹⁰⁴ and despite his surviving correspondence being large with details about lecture arrangements, holidays and the exchange of photographs for publications (for the latter see below), there is no letter questioning any part of the translation.

2.2.7 Photographs as Illustrations In the Editorial Board meeting in August, it was agreed that contributors should be asked ‘first to send photographs of their work and, after selection by the Editors, to pay for the blocks of work to be reproduced.’¹⁰⁵ In line with the practice of other journals at the time, all contributors were asked to send the illustrations. Some contributors, such as Walter Gropius, asked for their return.¹⁰⁶ Others also commented on their projects illustrated in these photographs. Breuer, for example, commented on the theatre at Charkow, the outcome of an international competition in 1930 (which did not appear in any form in the publication of Circle): ‘The programme asked for a theatre to seat 4,000 which was a mistake because it

 See Martin, Letter (draft) to Mondrian (18 Jan. 1937). Mondrian wrote in French.  See Marcel Breuer, Architektur und Material, undated, unpublished, Marcel Breuer’s personal and literary correspondence while in London, 1936-1937, 2 folders in the Collection Francis Reginal Stevens Yorke (Ref nos. YoF/1/2 and YoF/2/2), RIBA London.  Speight, Minutes of Editorial Board Meetings 20 June (Hampstead), 10 to 13 July (Hull) and 15 to 19 August 1936 (Hampstead).  See Walter Gropius, Letter to Leslie Martin, 4 March 1937, unpublished, typescript, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936 – 8), RIBA, London. For other journals, including the Architectural Review and The Architectural Record (New York), see Marcel Breuer’s personal and literary correspondence while in London, 1936 – 1937, 2 folders in the Collection Francis Reginal Stevens Yorke (Ref nos. YoF/1/2 and YoF/2/2), RIBA London.

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is impossible to seat 4,000 well. The ideal number, I consider, is between 1,200 and 2,000.’¹⁰⁷ The Acknowledgements, in which the editors listed those whom they thanked for having provided photographs reveal that it was not always the authors who provided the illustrations for their essays.¹⁰⁸ Shand, the translator of the essays by Giedion and Honzík, provided also some of the plates for these essays in addition to the photographs of the buildings in the architecture section by Aalto (figs. 1 and 2), Havlíček and Honzík (figs. 23 and 24) and Johannes Bernardus van Loghem (fig. 25).¹⁰⁹ Carola Giedion-Welcker and Walter Gropius were thanked for their permission to reproduce three photographs taken by them of Stonehenge. These were part of Hepworth’s essay printed in the sculpture section. The close-up view came from Giedion-Welcker, who used the same photograph in her book Moderne Plastik (Modern Plastic Art) published in the same year as Circle and mentioned in Circle’s bibliography.¹¹⁰ Being busy writing that book might have been one of the reasons why Giedion-Welcker was not invited to be an author in Circle, despite her being an art critic and historian in her own right. Her husband, Sigfried Giedion, on the other hand, was asked to send in an essay on the work of the CIAM (Congrès internationaux d’architecture moderne), the association of which Giedion was the first secretary-general.¹¹¹ The illustrations relating to this article were taken from Warszawa Funkcjonalna, a book published in Warsaw in 1934 by the architects Jan Chmielewski and Szymon Syrkus,¹¹² the latter of whose work, together with his architect wife, Helena Syrkus, was also illustrated in the architecture section (figs. 45 – 48). Despite not being named in the photo credits, most likely because of being an editor, Gabo provided the illustrations for the works by Tatlin and Konstantin Medunetsky in the

 See Marcel Breuer, Letter to Leslie Martin, 4 Jan. 1937, unpublished, typescript, Marcel Breuer’s personal and literary correspondence while in London, 1936 – 1937, 2 folders in the Collection Francis Reginal Stevens Yorke (Ref nos. YoF/1/2 and YoF/2/2), RIBA London.  [Editors], ‘Acknowledgements’.  Ibid.  See Carola Giedion-Welcker, Moderne Plastik, Zurich: Girsberger, 1937.  For the CIAM, see Konstanze Sylvia Domhardt, ‘Transatlantische Beziehungen—stadtplanerische Netzwerke,’ in: Dogramaci and Wimmer (eds.), Netzwerke des Exils. Künstlerische Verflechtungen, Austausch und Patronage nach 1933, Berlin: Gebrüder Mann Verlag, 2011, 313 – 32 and Sima Ingberman, ABC. International Constructivist Architecture, 1922-1939, Cambridge, Mass., London: MIT Press, 1994, 145 – 163.  This book, which scholarship had been relating to Warsaw planning for decades, was republished in 2013.

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sculpture section (figs. 21 and 22), the same which were reproduced in GiedionWelcker’s book on modern sculpture published in the same year. Those illustrations that appear at the beginning of each section without being part of an essay were provided by a number of people, including contributors, such as Jan Tschichold, who was also thanked for providing the photograph of a work by El Lissitzky from 1925 in the painting section of Circle (fig. 15). For the same chapter, its editor Ben Nicholson also received a photograph from the Mayor Gallery, London, namely a painting by Klee from 1929 (fig. 38). The photograph of the carving from Tiahuanaco in Peru at the end of the sculpture section was taken from the book by Philip Ainsworth Means, Ancient Civilizations of the Andes, published in 1931 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. The photograph of one of Alexander Calder’s mobiles dated 1935 in the sculpture section (fig. 20) and, in the architecture section, the two buildings from Whipsnade by Lubetkin and Tecton (figs. 28 and 29) mentioned above and the House at Esher with architectural plans of the ground and first floors by F. R. S. Yorke (fig. 49) were taken from the Architectural Review. All illustrations of work by Le Corbusier (and Jeanneret) were not provided by Le Corbusier himself, but by publications on the architect, namely from Girsberger (ed.), Le Corbusier. Œuvre Complète de 1929 – 35 and the journal L’Architecture d’Aujourdhui. While the former finds therefore entry in the Bibliography, the latter does not, an indication of a possible rush when publishing Circle. Artists were asked for illustrations and photographs of works produced right up to the publication date.¹¹³ Indeed, most of the illustrations in the sculpture section were of works dated from mid-1920 to 1936. Those from the painting section were older, i. e. from around the 1910s or 1930s, while the architecture section had buildings erected from 1930 to 1937 and included also works that were

 See, for example, Sadie Speight, Letter (draft) to Robert Maillart, Hull, 5 Dec. 1936, unpublished, manuscript, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936 – 8), RIBA, London: ‘I must thank you again very much indeed for your kindness in sending the periodicals illustrating your work. I have now had time to look through these carefully and have been wondering if you would be kind enough to send illustrations of the following: 1 Interior Filature Benet a Barcelone. 2 Aqueduc sur l’Eau Noire a Chatelard pour les Forces motrices de Vernayaz des C. F. F. 3 Pont sur le Schwandbach (Berne) 4 Pont a Innertkirchen. 5 Rheinbruche bei Tavanasa. I hope that you will be able to send photographs of these works. In addition have you any work finished in the year 1936? We should like particularly to illustrate an example of your latest building work. May I say again how very grateful we are for your help and your kindness in offering to send photographs. Yours very sincerely, [not signed].’

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only planned but never built (such as the Garden City of the Future, which was a model shown at the annually held Ideal Home Exhibition at the Olympia exhibition centre in London in 1936). In a letter to Lubetkin, the role of illustrations and how they relate to text is described by the editor Martin: With regard to photographs of your work, these are of course quite separate from the article, which could have its own illustrations. For the photographs we should like to have possibly executed work or projects which have not already been illustrated elsewhere, for example, your excellent bungalow at Whipsnade. I think that Skinner understands that we should also like to have explanatory notes and diagrams where necessary.¹¹⁴

In this case, this is exactly what was illustrated in the final publication, as outlined above. Indeed, Circle is not just a publication with text, but the illustrations of works rank at least the same as the essays. The cover page, for example, distinguishes between painters, sculptors, architects and writers, but presents them in the same way. Indeed, the photographs played a far more important role than only ‘illustrating’ the articles; in the case of Honzík’s essay, Leslie Martin asked to reprint illustrations additional to those reproduced in the publication The Concrete Way; in this case, the illustrations seem, indeed, to be even more important than the text.¹¹⁵ In total, Circle consists of over 240 illustrations, with one or two works on a page, compared to about 100 pages of text. This suggests that the ‘constructive idea’ was understood as a theoretical framework, but even more so as being realised in art, design and architectural objects. Indeed, Jan Tschichold noted the relevance of photographs as an important feature of his so-called ‘New Typography’ (as distinct from the ‘New Traditionalism’, which prefers woodcuts and drawings) in his contribution to Circle. ¹¹⁶ Elsewhere, Tschichold has related this ‘New Typography’ to ‘concrete’ art as if the ‘New Typography’ could also be described as concrete typography; referring to Theo von Doesburg’s term Konkrete Malerei (concrete painting), he differentiates concrete from abstract by arguing that abstract art actually uses concrete elements, such as geometrical forms, which develop a new reality, representing only itself.¹¹⁷ He therefore concludes that abstract art is actually Konkrete Kunst (con-

 Martin, Letter (copy) to Lubetkin (3 Dec. 1936).  See Karel Honzík and Leslie Martin, Correspondence, 1936 – 7, unpublished, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936-8), RIBA, London.  See Jan Tschichold, ‘New Typography,’ in: Gabo et al. (eds.), Circle. International Survey of Constructive Art, London: Faber and Faber, 1937, 249 – 55, 251.  See Jan Tschichold, Typographische Gestaltung, Basel: Benno Schwabe & Co, 1935, 83 – 87. This book has been listed in the Appendix of Circle.

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crete art) and that painting’s sole role is to represent itself (namely form and colour on the plane), while photography is the medium to represent reality (which he calls Gegenständlichkeit—i. e. objectivity). While this understanding is rather meant in view of a typical twentieth-century distinction between art and photography, one may, nevertheless, wonder about the function of photography as representing the reality of an art object; a photograph was certainly used for documentary purposes, proving the existence now of the object at the time. While illustrations of paintings created few problems in this respect, those of sculptures were providing one perspective of the object only (except for a sculpture by Moore that was depicted from two sides, as outlined in Chapter 3.1), unlike those buildings, which were often accompanied by drawings. The emphasis on illustration differentiates Circle from some other publications of the time. Unit One, for example, had fewer illustrations, although the plans for Unit One show an increased concern for photographs; the archival papers related to these plans refer to a so-called Photographic Album for which photographs of works were requested and which was seemingly thought of as another publication alongside Unit One. ¹¹⁸ However, there is no further evidence, suggesting that the first idea may have been dismissed and that photographs originally planned for the album may have been used instead for the book Unit One. Illustrations increased the price of a journal, and it may well be because of the illustrations that Circle did not become a journal or series with regularly appearing issues. The discussion around the illustrations has also brought to light that not all those whose works were included in Circle were personally known or even contacted by the editors, for contributors approached their friends and acquaintances, too. While those writing essays had a correspondence with the editors, the artists whose illustrations were included, and thus had their names mentioned on the front cover as if they belonged to Circle, were not necessarily even asked to be included, as illustrations may have been provided by others. This goes particularly for Le Corbusier, who might have known about the reproduction of his work, but there is no evidence that he was contacted. Furthermore, it is the illustrations, unlike its text, which underpin that Circle ‘drew lines’ to and made associations with cultures outside Western modernism; not into the contemporary, but rather into the past high cultures of Stonehenge and Tiahuanaco, following therefore, traditions well established within modern-

 See Wells Coates, Wells Coates papers (Correspondence and other papers related to Unit One), unpublished, TGA 9120.51– 53, The Tate Archive, London.

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ism, although the mention of an archaeological site in Peru seems unusual in this respect.¹¹⁹

2.2.8 Developing the Structure of Circle in Comparison with the Final Publication The archival file in which the Minutes are kept include three draft versions of the book. Two are the same, differentiating each other only by handwritten comments added to the typescript. These two were attached to the July Minutes. The third one is a more elaborate version that is part of handwritten notes up to 17 November. These three versions form the central reference point for this section on planning the structure of Circle. Previous literature to Circle has not consulted these preliminary ideas, but has only based its findings on the published version as such, which led John Gage to conclude that the contributions ‘could hardly be classified in any very clear-cut way.’¹²⁰ These draft versions not only show that the principal division into painting, sculpture, architecture and art and life remained constant, but also that the editors had a clear vision of their classification. This is relevant, as Gage concludes from his findings that what he perceived as a blurring of genres corresponded with the principal idea of Constructive art that ‘destroyed the traditional boundaries between painting and sculpture.’¹²¹ The July Minutes record that the book was planned to be divided into five main sections named ‘Painting,’ ‘Sculpture,’ ‘Architecture,’ ‘Art and Life’ and an ‘Appendix.’¹²² This means that, even when the book was planned as a journal with subsequent issues, there still would have been this structure. In his letter to Lubetkin on 3 December 1936, asking him to contribute, Leslie Martin describes the sections: The review published annually will be divided into sections. The architectural section will include photographs of work and a series of articles. I have arranged for a general introduction to this section followed by articles on specific aspects. For example, Breuer is writing on materials, Neutra on housing in America, Richards on production, and Syrkus and Gie-

 This topic merits further investigation that cannot be provided here. For a short discussion of their function within Circle, see below Chapter Three.  See John Gage, ‘Art and Life,’ in: Lewison (ed.), Circle. Constructive Art in Britain, 1934-40, exhibition catalogue, Cambridge: Kettle’s Yard, 20 Feb. to 28 March 1982, 43 – 6, 43.  See ibid.  See Speight, Minutes of Editorial Board Meetings 20 June (Hampstead), 10 to 13 July (Hull) and 15 to 19 August 1936 (Hampstead).

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dion are also writing for this section. Gropius has written for us, but his article will be in another part of the Review. ¹²³

Additionally, the July Minutes drafted the book with a title page, followed by a so-called ‘diagram of the Review’ (which has not been explained further) and an ‘Editorial’ that would appear at the beginning of the book before the first section. In the August Minutes, the Editorial also had a subtitle, namely ‘Development of the Constructive Idea’, which would finally be published under Gabo’s authorship with the title ‘The Constructive Idea in Art’, presumably to highlight that the book dealt with art. This essay was preceded by a two-page introduction without an author’s name but a heading saying ‘Editorial.’ Already in July, the editors listed as their last section ‘Advertisements’.¹²⁴ This section underpins that Circle was planned as a journal similar to Axis and other periodicals of the time regarding advertisements of other periodicals and books published at the end of each issue. The July Minutes specify that only ‘approved adverts to be inserted and their layout to be controlled. Possible exchange of adverts with Telehor, Axis, Gaceta de Arte, Architectural Review, Plastique?’ These journals are those in which Circle’s editors and contributors were involved and to which they had submitted essays, most likely read or, as in the case of Axis, had formed a close relation. In fact, the closest relationship between the editors of Circle and another journal was that with Axis. It is telling that Ben Nicholson was asked to inform Axis of the ‘aims and policy’ of Circle at the time when the latter was still planned as a review journal by the Editorial Board. Telehor, a journal subtitled ‘International Journal for Optical Culture,’ was a short-lived left-wing journal of two issues published in Brno by the Czech architect and typographer František Kalivoda (1913 – 1971) in 1936, to which Moholy-Nagy had contributed an essay.¹²⁵ Gaceta de Arte appeared in Spanish from February 1932 to May 1936, first monthly and then irregularly, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.¹²⁶ A cultural journal covering painting, architecture, cin-

 Martin, Letter (copy) to Lubetkin (3 Dec. 1936).  See Speight, Minutes of Editorial Board Meetings 20 June (Hampstead), 10 to 13 July (Hull) and 15 to 19 August 1936 (Hampstead).  For secondary literature on the journal, see Klemens Gruber and Oliver A. I. Botar (eds.), Telehor. L. Moholy-Nagy. Commentary and Translation, Zurich: Lars Muller Publishers, 2013 and Patrick Rössler, Zwischen Typofoto und Telehor. Medieninnovationen im Spiegel der Publikumspresse 1918-1938, Stuttgart: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Publizistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft, 2010.  For literature, see Pilar Carreño Corbella, Eduardo Westerdahl, Santa Cruz de Tenerife: Ediciones del Umbral, 2002 and Emmanuel Guigon, Gaceta de Arte y su época 1932-1936,

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ema, sculpture, philosophy, literature, music, theatre and poetry, it has become known, under the editor-in-chief Eduardo Westerdahl, for fostering the exchange between the Canaries and the avant-garde. Its link with Circle was most likely via Ben Nicholson, who participated in an exhibition on Surrealist and abstract art organised by the journal at Santa Cruz in June 1936 (one month previous to the first editorial meeting of Circle),¹²⁷ and Jan Tschichold, whose new typography was adapted for the journal. Its mention in the July Minutes of Circle is intriguing for two reasons. Having become known for staging the exhibition Arte Surrealista in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 1935 as the first Surrealist show in Spain, in light of Circle being staged as a counter-voice to Surrealism as mentioned above, this reference underpins that abstract and constructive art was probably not so far removed from Surrealism as propagated. The journal is also said to have become bankrupt, as the exhibition cost too much which impacted on the publication, and ceased in 1936 (most likely also because of the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in the same year). The attraction for the editors of Circle, was seemingly, however, the Spanish journal’s interest in the avant-garde, its publicising of very contemporary art and its self-understanding as a journal which also organised exhibitions, as these points are comparable to the published Circle. Furthermore, space played a certain role, as it was mentioned 46 times during the journal’s publication.¹²⁸ However, its understanding of culture was broader than that of Circle and its layout in columns, printing more text than illustrations also differed from the final publication of Circle. In contrast to Telehor and Gaceta de Arte, the Architectural Review was a well-known journal. Published since 1896 in London, it was also different from the others in its concentration on architecture. By the time of its mention in the Circle’s July Minutes, it had become a leading journal for discourses on modernism and architecture.¹²⁹ Its link with Circle was via Richards who contributed the essay ‘The Condition of Architecture and the Principle of Anonymity’ to Circle and who was assistant editor of the Architectural Review in 1936 at the time. Martin, must also have known the monthly journal, and so did Moholy-Nagy and Breuer, who had contributed to it.¹³⁰

Santa Cruz de Tenerife: Viceconsejeria de Cultura y Deportes del Gobierno de Canarias, Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno, 1977.  For the exhibition partcipation, see Gaceta de Arte, vol. 38, Mai 1936, 2, which consists of a simple list of names participating in the exhibition. Among the 15 names is also VordembergeGildewart, the only other artist in the exhibition who contributed to Circle too.  Thanks to the complete digitalisation and tagging of keywords, a search for the word could be conducted. For the result, see http://jable.ulpgc.es/jable/cgi-bin/Pandora.exe.  See Susie Harries, Nikolaus Pevsner. The Life, London: Vintage Digital, 2011, 227– 230.  For Breuer, see Richards, Letter to Breuer (17 Nov. 1936).

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To sum up, advertisement was an area in which journals could work together and relate to each other, contributing not only financial help to each other, but also fostering associations. Hence advertisement reveals another aspect through which Circle appears in a net of journals related to others in ways in addition to that formed by textual or visual contributions. Returning to the planning of the structure of Circle, the ‘Editorial’ mentioned above was followed by the sections on painting, sculpture and architecture, which were all divided into ‘Theory’ and ‘Practical.’ While the latter was about artworks reproduced as photographs, the theory sections were further subdivided into ‘Quotations’ and ‘Writers.’ The architecture section included also plans and constructional drawings as well as photographs under ‘Practical.’ According to the Minutes of the editorial meetings, the publication’s outline from July was further specified in August. These included the length of the articles (proposed to be about 1,500 to 2,000 words, ‘but no limit to be suggested unless specially asked for’) and that key articles (recommended were those by Read, Gabo and Gropius) should have illustrations. In the following, I will go through these main sections, starting with painting, followed by sculpture, architecture and art and life (in order of appearance in the planning) and compare the plans with the final realisation. Again, these plans demonstrate not only the negotiations which took place regarding publishing, but also bring to the fore the wish list which the editors had about Circle. The following analysis therefore sees Circle as a process rather than only an end product, through which the constructive idea becomes ever more clarified, being also able to disprove certain aspects mentioned in the scholarship on Circle. The painting section was the responsibility of Ben Nicholson. While there were initial plans about who should contact whom in the June Minutes, the August Minutes are more elaborate: Nicholson should write to Mondrian and Sweeney ‘again’—curator at MoMA and editor of the literary journal Transition at the time of planning Circle (namely from June 1936 to May 1938)—who in the end, however did not contribute. Gabo should also help by writing to Hildebrandt and Winifred Dacre, inquiring about their contributions. The reason for this was that Gabo knew the art critic Hildebrandt, who had mentioned Gabo’s work favourably in one of his books. In the case of Dacre, it may have been in order to avoid a clash between her and Ben Nicholson, as the two were divorced by then, having, however, three children together. The July Minutes report that it was envisaged to have essays on ‘painting’ (by Mondrian) and on ‘direction’ (by Sweeney). Furthermore, suggestions included essays on the ‘principles of painting’ (by Read), the ‘future development of painting’ (by Westerdahl), ‘constructive use’ (by Nicholson) and ‘colour,’ which was named as ‘The Constructive Use of Colour’ in the August Minutes and published

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finally as ‘Unknown Colour’ (by Dacre). Additionally contributors without allocated topics were suggested, namely the architect Alberto Sartoris, who, in the end, wrote an essay on ‘Colour in Interior Architecture’ published in the architecture section, and the art critic Ernst Kállai, who was the editor-in-chief of Bauhaus from 1928 to 1929 and who had gone back to his home country Hungary in 1935. The August Minutes inform that, it had been decided that Sartoris’ contribution should now be a translation of one of his contributions to the Gaceta de Arte, though in the end that was not included in Circle. Despite the cryptic nature of the Minutes, it is clear that the notion of ‘constructive’ was key from early on. Furthermore, the focus of the essays seems to have been on the future development of this idea, rather than its past. The past, on the other hand, may have been intended to be represented by quotations which, according to the July Minutes, were planned to go at the beginning of each section, but in the end not realised. ‘Einstein’ (no first name was provided, so it could refer to the physicist Albert Einstein or the German art historian Carl Einstein, who lived in Paris from 1928 and took part in the Spanish Civil War, having written on Cubism, Expressionism and Giorgio de Chirico) and quotations ‘from Moscow,’ the latter of which should be obtained by Gabo, were suggested for the painting section. Furthermore, quotations, which appeared fully typed in an appendix to the draft structure of the book as part of the Minutes, were taken from the Codex Atlanticus, a 1,119-sheet-long manuscript covering Leonardo da Vinci’s entire work and life. These quotations, including full reference with the codex page, dealt with the dependence of certainty on mathematical proof, with philosophical observations on the scientific laws governing human existence and nature, and issues of unity and diversity.¹³¹ As diverse as these are, the editors seemingly associated their concerns with unity and diversity, and scientific and philosophical ideas on nature and ‘life’, understood as human life and potency, with their own aims with Circle. While the illustrations appear before the essays in the final version of Circle, the editors had planned to print first the text and then the images. This means that the planning took primarily a textual and theoretical approach and then a visual one, which is an important point to raise. The particulars of the photographs in the painting section were mainly developed from July to August. While

 For the full quotations see the July Minutes: ‘There is no certainty where one can neither apply any of the mathematical sciences nor any of those which are based upon the mathematical sciences.’ ‘Weight, pressure, and accidental movement together with resistance are the four accidental powers in which all the visible works of mortals have their existence and their end.’ ‘Necessity is the Mistress and guide of nature.’ ‘Every part is disposed to unite with the whole that it may thereby escape from its own incompleteness’.

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in the June Minutes, only the word ‘Photographs’ appears, the subsequent Minutes mention the following names: Ben Nicholson, Mondrian, John Stephenson (misspelled as ‘Stevenson’), Arthur Jackson, Jean Hélion, Hans Erni, Friedrich Vordemberge and Moholy-Nagy. All of these did contribute in the end. According to his handwritten notes, Martin noted for 19 September that Nicholson should ‘collect illustrations by Braque, Picasso, early Arp, Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Duchamp to be placed together and illustrate constructive work of period’. Indeed, these artists, too were included in the final version of Circle, which is particularly interesting in light of these artists representing practices not considered Constructivism and therefore functioning as reference points from which to draw associations for the development of the constructive idea. It was also agreed in August that Nicolette Gray, the curator of Abstract and Concrete, the first abstract art show in Britain, was to be ‘kept in mind as writer for the second number’, probably because the section was already substantial, but other reasons may also apply. It nevertheless demonstrates that as late as August 1936 the editors were still convinced of publishing a second issue. The sculpture section planned to print quotations from Adrian Stokes and Henry Moore, of whom the latter was included with a quotation in the final book, while the former was not. In the August meeting, the list was expanded to include also Hepworth, though noted with a question mark. Writers of essays were Hepworth, Gabo, Bernal on ‘Construction of form in Nature’ and someone called ‘Frankfurt’ (probably a misspelling for Frankfort mentioned in Chapter 3.2) on ‘Principles of Sculpture’. In August, Hepworth’s title was given as ‘Scale in Sculpture’. The list of writers also included now again the name Frankfurt on ‘Principles of Sculpture’ and the architect Nelson, both of who did not contribute to the final version of Circle. Photographs should be obtained from Hepworth, Gabo, Pevsner, Moore and, though with quotation marks, Duchamp, Lissitzky, Giacometti and Brâncuşi, all of whom were included in the final version, though Duchamp and Lissitzky ended up in the ‘Painting’ section. It was agreed in August that Gabo would write to Pevsner and someone named ‘Corin’, the latter to ask for photographs of his sculpture. Moreover, it was suggested that Nelson would probably be included in this section. Compared to the other three sections (painting, architecture and art and life) the sculpture section seems to have needed the least work in August; its task list was short and the planning was already well under way with having not only the names of contributors, but also titles of the essays and acceptances by some writers. However the sculpture section was also the one which, in the end, involved the fewest people, namely only half the number of the painters and one third the number of the architects. If the sculpture section was the most developed among the four sections, the architectural was the least, as in July, names were suggested but not agreed yet,

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and in August, there was a long list of tasks to be completed (for details on the tasks, see below). The architecture section should take quotations from Adolf Loos (from his lecture Ornament and Crime, published in Cahiers d’aujourd’hui in 1913 and attacking the use of ornaments in art), Gropius, Le Corbusier and Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud. The quotation from the latter, included as handwritten and typewritten in French in the Minutes, was taken from Oud’s book on Dutch architecture. It refers to mourning the dominance of ‘sentiment’ instead of form in art and thus is very much in line with essays published in the final version which emphasised form over emotion, such as, for example, Read’s ‘The Faculty of Abstraction’ discussed in detail in the next chapter (3.3).¹³² Apart from the quotations cited above, which are printed and attached behind the August Minutes, the following quotations were written down but not allocated. Marked as ‘Very Important’, one of them was taken from CIAM’s La Sarraz Declaration in 1928 that stressed modern architects’ emphasis on constructing as an elementary activity of human beings, while the other came from the 1935 issue of Cahier d’Art which underscored architecture’s economic and social role.¹³³ Both of these quotations are cross-referenced to the official Minutes of the August meeting, by referring to Martin who should write a report on the CIAM conference at La Sarraz; later this task was given to Giedion who, as noted for the date of 23 August, should be asked ‘if he will write the report on the conference’, which he did in addition to his essay on ‘Construction and Aesthetics.’ For contributors to the architecture section, the August Minutes list Richard J. Neutra (who had replied by 28 August 1936 that he would write on ‘new material’), J. M. Richards with an essay on ‘Constructive ideas’ and Maxwell Fry with a text titled ‘Town Planning’ (including the ‘The Tennessee Valley Scheme’). They were still to submit their texts. As Neutra did contribute, the editors of Circle did not need Yorke who was suggested as a substitute for Neutra and should have written on ‘Housing Advance in America.’ Honzík did also write on his sug-

 The original quotation reads: C’est le sentiment de la vie d’une epoque qui dirige son art, non pas sa tradition des formes.’  The original quotations read (see August Minutes): ‘Nous, architectes moderne, insistons particulierement sur le fait que “construire” est une activite elementaire de l’homme, intimemente liée a l’evolution et au development de la vie humaine … Les ouvres architecturales ne peuvent relever que du temps present …. Declaration de la Sarraz 1928’ and ‘L’intention qui nous reunit est d’atteindre a l’indispensable et urgente harmonisation des elements en presence en REPLACANT L’ARCHITECTURE SUR SON PLAN VERITABLE QUI EST LE PLAN ECONOMIQUE ET SOCIOLOGIQUE’. The latter also had the note ‘lots more of this’, referring to the journal Cahier d’Art, nos. 1– 4, 1935.

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gested title ‘Note on Biotechnics’, but it was finally published in Circle’s art and life section. Nelson and Lubetkin did not contribute in the end, but it was suggested that the former should write on hospitals (already with a question mark behind the title and on a later draft moved to the sculpture section) and the latter on ‘Town Planning’. Syrkus, who should contribute ‘something on theatre,’ in the end was only represented by reproductions of his work; the name of ‘Entwistle’ was added with a question mark and without any title/topic, also not to make it into the final book. As to the photographs, no names were provided in the July Minutes, while the handwritten notes for or after the August meeting mention the following: Martin, Gropius, Breuer, Yorke, Tecton, Fry, Christopher Nicholson, Roth, Syrkus, Nelson and Honzík. One or two illustrations of each of these were included in the final version of Circle. ¹³⁴ The names of Maillart and Neutra were ticked off, because the editors already may have received photographs from them, as works by both are illustrated in the final publication of Circle. Those who were listed with a question mark behind their name include Lucas Connell, Le Corbusier, Sartoris, Aalto, Havlíček and the architect Josep Lluís Sert, who was member of the Spanish architect group GATEPAC, formed in the 1930s as a Spanish branch of CIAM. Neither he, nor works by GATEPAC (as suggested in one of the meetings) or Connell, who formed a group with Basil Ward and Amyas Lucas from 1933 to 1939 with a lasting impact on modern housing styles in Britain, were to contribute. Nevertheless, their draft inclusion demonstrates that the editors wanted to embrace any group regardless of nationality that was producing modern architecture. The architecture section was meant to provide a truly inclusive picture of modern architecture contemporary to Circle. Unlike other sections, Martin could build upon the international work of the group CIAM, to which many architects belonged, thus attempting to achieve as full as possible a view on international modern architecture. Minutes for the art and life section comprised suggestions for quotations from Read, Mumford and Plato (and in August Barr and Hodgson additionally). Typed quotations were from Plato’s Socratic dialogue Republic, which referred to the relevance of the purpose of art, and from Read’s article published in The Listener in 1935 that highlights the aesthetic nature of formal elements beyond classical architecture.¹³⁵ In his essay published in 1982, John Gage argued that the

 See Gabo, Martin and Nicholson (eds.), Circle. International Survey of Constructive Art, 131– 183. Tecton was paired with Lubetkin as Lubetkin and Tecton in figs. 28, 29 and 30.  The quotations in the August Minutes read: ‘Are not the excellence, beauty and correctness of every manufactured article, or living creature, or action, to be tried only by a reference to the purpose intended in their construction, or in their natural constitution (Plato, The Republic).’ And that of Read: ‘If a man cannot see that it is possible to be sensitive in the proportions

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section ‘Art and Life’ is a ‘miscellaneous collection of material’ that might have also fitted in other sections; particularly Moholy-Nagy’s essay on ‘Light Painting’ could have been printed under the sections of ‘Painting’ or ‘Architecture’ and Mumford’s attack on permanence in architecture could also belong to ‘Architecture.’¹³⁶ However, the planning of the essays as well as the final publication of Circle rather suggest that ‘Art and Life’ referred to areas other than painting, sculpture and architecture except perhaps Mumford’s contribution. Published topics include art education, choreography, typography and biotechnics. The planning stage also had suggestions of essays on ‘Form consciousness in children’ and ‘waste’, the latter taken from John Lawrence Hodgson’s book The Great God Waste first published in 1917. Barr should contribute on ‘propaganda’, Moholy-Nagy on photography, Breuer on furniture, René Clair and Sergei Eisenstein on film and Szymon Syrkus on experimental theatre construction in Warsaw. They even considered including Massine’s film stills ‘from any films which he may have of himself.’ In other words, the editors considered the constructive idea as applicable to practically any medium and discipline. Despite having this approach, in the end, most of these ideas did not take form, probably because of practical reasons having to do with publication. The title ‘Art and Life’ and the section’s content (as well as the criticism to the book as outlined below) are examples for Peter Bürger’s claim in 1974 that the avant-garde attempted to organise a new living practice with their art.¹³⁷ Its title might, despite, not mentioning it, indicate the role that was demanded of art in 1936, particularly of abstract art—namely to have a social or political relevance to contemporary events. Moreover, as will be outlined in the next chapter, the constructive idea included a social relevance of art, a belief in art that could change society. In their July board meeting, the editors also planned an appendix which should consist of publications, exhibitions during 1936 (notes and photographs) and the so called ‘Position of constructive art in other countries’, namely ‘support, opposition, advance, reaction.’ Only in the August Minutes was this further outlined as to contain the following exhibitions: ‘Abstract and Concrete (Oxford

and harmonies of planes and surfaces—that there is art in areas and angles, in textures and weights, in light and shade—and that these things are more than adequate substitutes for acanthus mouldings and fluted columns, for porches and pediments. For the whole heavy hotch potch of academic Romanticism; if a man cannot see this simple truth, then he is simply blind to the very elements of beauty, and beyond the reach of any logic or eloquence (Herbert Read, The Listener, vol. xiii, no. 332, 1935).’  See Gage, ‘Art and Life’, 43 – 46.  See Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984 (first published in German in 1974).

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and London); A.T.O. Housing Exhibition and the M.A.R.S. GROUP Town Planning (opening on 16 September 1936).’ Books, which should be reviewed by editorial members, included Barr’s Cubism and Abstract Art (to be written by Gabo), Read’s Art and Society (no name assigned) and Catherine Bauer’s Modern Housing (to be written by Martin), all of which were finally listed as references in the Bibliography of Circle. In addition the following journals were recorded: Gaceta de Arte; The Architectural Review and The Concrete Way. It was not outlined as to whether these should be represented by quotations or just references (which, indeed, happened in the end). Under ‘Quotations’ at the end of the Minutes, there was a list under the heading ‘For further quotes see’ containing names (sometimes with a publication title), presumably to indicate alternatives for the quotations already provided. These include Richards’ essay ‘Towards a Rational Aesthetic’ which had appeared in The Architectural Review in 1935 ‘(vol. 78, 210 – 8)’; L’Architecture Vivante, a journal for avant-garde architecture published in France from 1923 to 1932 and catalogues of exhibitions, among them of an exhibition held at the Museum of Living Art (New York) in 1936 and of These, Antithese, Synthese (Kunstmuseum Luzern, 24 Feb. to 31 March 1935), whose cover is illustrated in Tschichold’s contribution to Circle. Some of these sources also appeared in the final ‘Bibliography’ in the Appendix, namely The Architectural Review and the exhibition catalogues (but not Richards’ essay and the journal L’Architecture Vivante). Both the planning and the final mentions show how widely spread Circle thought of their idea. To sum up, the planning of the structure of the book shows an even wider variety of names, publications and art works that could have been included in Circle. Names such as Eisenstein and Clair, who did not contribute in the end, indicate that their contributions may have offered a further layer to the published version of Circle, regarding their approach, but principally, did not fall much outside the categories of artists already mentioned. This does not mean that an analysis of the Minutes has been in vain, because they provide an insight into a wide network of people, connected through group membership, common activities (e. g. exhibiting together, knowing of and contributing to the same journals) and personal relationships, and draws awareness to the fact that the publication of Circle was only a stage—without doubt, relevant for the dissemination afterwards—in the process of developing and forming the ‘constructive idea’, a stage that can be expanded towards a pre-history of the publication. Such associations formed before publication also show that the editors were adventurous in exploiting their social relations to persuade a large number of people to contribute to the idea of Circle. It must have been disappointing that Barr and Sweeney from the MoMA did not contribute in the end. On the other hand, the editors’ selection of those they did not ask also raised eyebrows. Gabo’s brother Antoine,

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for example, reported that Circle caused a stir amongst artists in Paris, particularly the exclusion of Gorin and artists from the Réalités nouvelles such as the abstract painter Robert Delaunay and the sculptor Georges Vantongerloo, who had co-signed the first manifesto of the De Stijl group and was a founding member of Abstraction-Création.¹³⁸ Evaluating the editorial choices deliberated and made, however, I would not go so far as to characterise the editorial work and Circle as being based ‘rather on chance contacts and enthusiasms than on a rigorous editorial policy’, as Gage has put forward.¹³⁹ The planning shows that the truth lies in the middle; of course, it was based on the chance of knowing people and of them agreeing to contribute. However, the planning was seemingly not arbitrary but thoughtful and quite deliberate, as indicated, for example, by the criticism of Gabo’s brother just cited. Moreover, the planning of Circle shows that the editors had a distinct idea of painting, sculpture and architecture, art types used to separate the sections from each other in Circle, and believed that the constructive idea could infuse all parts of life. The planning of Circle—with its considering of topics such as waste, children’s consciousness, propaganda and experimental theatre—underpins and broadens the range of what Gage concluded from those published essays that were concerned with hospitals, schools and the low-cost workers’ housing: namely that the editors displayed a social commitment and social vision.¹⁴⁰ Arguably, Circle went further than only remaining a ‘utopian vision’—particularly in view of the architects and those writings in the art and life section—for buildings were erected and contributing architects were involved in socially committed organisations, such as the CIAM, which included Giedion as its first secretary-general, Sartoris, Syrkus and El Lissitzky as founding members and Gropius and Aalto, who joined later.

2.2.9 The Relationship to the Publishers The publishing-house played a decisive role in shaping the publication Circle, namely its full title and format of publishing. Faber and Faber was founded as

 See Antoine Pevsner, Letters to Naum Gabo, 14 (late 1936) [exact date is missing], and 6 Aug. 1939, both Tate Collection, London, cited in: Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 245 – 6.  See Gage, ‘Art and Life’, 43.  See ibid., 46.

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such in 1929 by Geoffrey Faber in London.¹⁴¹ Although it specialised in poetry, it still printed books by a number of artists and art critics, among them Herbert Read who had published with them his Innocent Eye in 1933 and Art and Industry in 1934 by the time the editors of Circle considered Faber and Faber. This may have been the reason why the editors agreed in August that Read should ‘be asked to act as intermediary between editors and publishers.’ Indeed, Faber and Faber was a very good choice, as its editors at the time—the owner Geoffrey Faber and the poet T. S. Eliot, who had published his Collected Poems with Faber and subsequently become an editor—were both interested in fostering modernism in a wide range of disciplines.¹⁴² Other editors included Charles Stewart, Frank Morley and Richard de la Mare, who was responsible for Circle. In 1936, Faber and Faber published Rudolf Arnheim’s Radio Art, a book on broadcast as art translated by Read and Margaret Ludwig (who married Read in 1936); Nicolas Pevsner’s book Pioneers of the Modern Movement and Gropius’ New Architecture and the Bauhaus, translated by Shand and published a year earlier. In a letter in 1937 to Lewis Mumford, one of the contributors, Martin reflects on the relationship with the publishing-house: I must explain that our idea has always been to publish Circle as an annual review, but as the contents arrived, it proved to be a review of considerable bulk, and, eventually, our publishers suggested a stiff binding. Later, (in fact just before publication date) they suggested that anything indicating a recurring nature would affect sales and proposed the word ‘survey’ in place of ‘review.’ Circle, though we still hope that it will be an annual publication has now taken book shape.¹⁴³

According to Martin, the decision to have it published as a yearbook was made by the publishing-house. Indeed, Richard de la Mare, the editor from Faber and Faber responsible for Circle wrote on 15 November 1938, a good year after Circle had appeared, that

 For the latest book on the publishing-house, see Toby Faber, Faber & Faber. The Untold History of a Great Publishing House, London: Faber and Faber, 2019, which consists of edited letters by his grandfather and Eliot as well as others and documents on the firm from 1924 to 1990. See also their extended history accompanied by photographs on their website. For the 1930s, see https://www.faber.co.uk/blog/about/faber-1930s/.  See Faber and Faber in the 1930s, https://www.faber.co.uk/blog/about/faber-1930s/.  See Leslie Martin, Letter to Mr Mumford, 18 July 1937, unpublished, typescript, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936 – 8), RIBA, London. Lewis Mumford did not want to have his article published, if there was an intention to publish Circle in America, as the submitted essay was part of a book that he was concurrently writing (see his letters dated 2 July 1937 and 31 Oct. 1937).

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we don’t on the whole like the idea of in any way presenting this as a series. The explanation is that in our experience a ‘series’ of this kind is usually only successful with the earlier volumes and that people get tired of them as [a] series, whereas if the books were to come out separately and on their own, each book would be treated as entirely new and with a fresh reaction from the bookseller and from the reader. I think that this is rather an important point.¹⁴⁴

This suggests that Martin went back to Faber and Faber after Circle’s publication in 1937 to ask as to whether Circle could be made into a series, of which the publishing-house was not in favour. In the end, even no loose books, thought of as monographs in their own rights without a recurrent appearance, were published for a number of reasons: a book on Gropius, in which the editor showed most interest, may have not been realised because of Gropius having just moved to the USA by then. The war may have been another reason for not following up the editor’s suggestion after 1939. Nevertheless, Faber and Faber continued to support books on art by those related to Circle; in 1938 Read published Poetry and Anarchism and, in the same year, Nicolette Gray’s book on Nineteenth-Century Ornamented Types and Title Pages appeared with them. The publishinghouse was generally open towards socialist ideas, as titles such as that by Read, and The Communist International (1938), Franz Borkenau’s critique on communism inspired by his visit to Spain where he observed the effects of the Spanish Civil War in Madrid. Thus, the final decision as to whether Circle was published as an annual book or series was made by the publishing-house on the basis of economic reasons, as will become clear through the discussion below (Chapter 2.3). This may not necessarily mean huge profit (as also hinted at below in 2.3.1). According to the grandson of the founder of the publishinghouse, Toby Faber, the objective for Eliot, its editor at the time and himself one of the bestselling authors of Faber and Faber, ‘was not to make money, but to lose as little as possible.’¹⁴⁵ While this may need to be taken with caution, as it is the publisher’s view, Faber has a point when he outlines that there are only ‘few guaranteed bestsellers’, because such achievement is dependent on the ‘taste of its editors and on the general acceptance of an author’ which ‘may take years.’¹⁴⁶ Nevertheless, Circle was far from being expected to become a bestseller, not least because the publishing-house specialised in literature,¹⁴⁷

 Richard de la Mare, Letter to Leslie Martin, 15 Nov. 1938, unpublished, typescript, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936 – 8), RIBA, London.  See Faber, Faber & Faber. The Untold History of a Great Publishing House, s.p. (ebook).  Ibid.  This is, to some extent, underpinned by the letters and reports on books to the firm’s editorial committee around the time of the publication of Circle. Despite being a selection under-

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but also because the editors of Circle were fairly unknown and the topic apparently was not considered by the publishing-house to be an investable one at the end of the 1930s.

2.2.10 Summary Considering the planning stage of Circle through the Minutes and other sources has brought forward that the ideas behind Circle can be related to professional and personal relationships between artists, publishers and art critics: there is a density in the kind of relationship formed around the core of the book, namely between the members of the Editorial Board consisting of Gabo, Martin, Nicholson, Hepworth and Speight, the latter in particular being involved in the book making behind the scenes. Contributors form a kind of wider cloud around the core, being characterised by personal and professional relationships established directly or through others or by being known to the editors through their publications. Furthermore, there are subscribers dedicated to the course of the book and a looser network of people who were approached or considered but in the end, did not appear in the book. This last group in particular represents the direction in which the editors wanted to take Circle, invisible if only the published version of Circle were studied. It includes the links with MoMA (Alfred Barr and James Sweeney did not participate), more contributions from Russian Constructivist architects (Ginzburg, Vesnin) and from Dutch architects (Van Eesteren and Rietveld). The book saw its roots in Russian Constructivism, but also in De Stijl, Bauhaus and Neoplasticism. Further to the suggestion made by Hammer and Lodder that Constructivism was unfamiliar to the British public, too dogmatic and narrowly artistic,¹⁴⁸ the reason for the subtitle ‘constructive’ also lies in the diversity of relationships as well as an emphasis on certain qualifying ideas (in Hepworth’s words, ‘a way of thinking’)¹⁴⁹ and actions rather than ‘membership’ in a movement (to take on Martin’s words).¹⁵⁰ Never-

taken in 2019 that may reflect also the perspective of its editor, Toby Faber, their content is concerned with literature and not with art. See ibid.  See Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 240.  Hepworth, Letter to Gabo, summer 1944, 8. Quoted in Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 493, fn. 85.  Martin, Letter to Ben Nicholson, 21 Jan. 1946 (enclosed with Nicholson’s letter to Summerson on 25 Jan 1946), Nicholson papers, Tate Colection, London. Quoted in Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 493, fn. 88. This suggestion has also been mentioned by Spalding, as noted above in the Introduction to Chapter Two.

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theless, conceptualising the history of stylistically defined ‘isms’ and movements by a network approach—which is thought of as open-ended and presented through a ‘contextualised’ account of people and journals, an account one may call a ‘tag-cloud-narrative’, brings to the fore the dynamism and active role that Circle played in bringing together a group of like-minded people, exhibits and publications interested in constructive and abstract art. The planning of Circle has brought even more to the fore how ‘internationally’ Circle was executed, reflected by its subheading ‘International Survey of Constructive Art’. To emphasise internationality may well have been due to having included artists from the USA and an essay by Richard J. Neutra solely concentrating on the USA;¹⁵¹ thus ‘European’, as applied to earlier movements,¹⁵² would have been inappropriate. Circle is close to Axis—which published essays by Kandinsky, Léger, César Domela and Hélion—in view of their approaches to continental art, but more distant, if considering the USA, as Axis predominantly had contributions from artists associated with Britain and France.¹⁵³ In terms of the relevance of space, the analysis above has shown that concepts of space as a topic did not play a role at the planning stage of Circle. However, the Minutes, reports and correspondence with the contributors say little about any aims and objectives of Circle apart from this being about the constructive idea. This raises the question as to the role of the concept of space in the final book. Was it somehow assumed within the constructive idea and so obvious that it seemingly did not need any discussion or was it the case that it only began to play a role in the published book and in the aftermath of the publication? This will become clearer in the following section, where the book as it finally appeared will be discussed.

 See Richard J. Neutra, ‘Routes of Housing Advance,’ in: Gabo et al. (eds.), Circle. International Survey of Constructive Art, London: Faber and Faber, 1937, 203 – 10.  In Circle, ‘European’ is mentioned as follows: ‘Cubism was a purely European phenomenon’ (Gabo, ‘The Constructive Idea in Art’, 3); reference to the ‘engineering tradition of the nineteenth century’ as ‘the last great English contribution to European culture’ (J. M. Richards, ‘The Condition of Architecture and the Principle of Anonymity’, 187); Sigfried Giedion contributes an article on the Congrés internationaux d’architecture moderne (272– 5) consisting of national sub-groups.  See Alexandra Harris, Romantic Moderns. English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper, London: Thames & Hudson, 2010, particularly, Chapter One.

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2.3 The Final Publication Circle, Direct Responses and the Relevance of Space as Topic In the meetings between 10 and 13 July 1936, the editorial board members proposed 1 January 1937 as the publication date for Circle. ¹⁵⁴ The deadline was delayed, as in December 1936, Martin reports that he is still ‘hoping to arrange our material.’¹⁵⁵ In the end, Circle was printed by Faber and Faber and published in July 1937. Immediately after the book was published the editorial board sent out copies of the book, seemingly to each contributor.¹⁵⁶ A letter (draft or copy) from Marcel Breuer, one of the contributors, thanking Martin for the receipt of a copy of Circle, reveals that Circle must have been published before 12 July 1937, the date of the letter.¹⁵⁷

2.3.1 Measuring Success by Sales Figures By 6 May 1938, the publishing-house had sold 750 copies; a few went to France and Switzerland, ‘America has been fairly satisfactory.’¹⁵⁸ For the publishinghouse, sales were just about covering the costs. In a letter before Circle’s publication, Richard de la Mare outlined that they needed to sell 800 copies at a guin-

 See Speight, Minutes of Editorial Board Meetings 20 June (Hampstead), 10 to 13 July (Hull) and 15 to 19 August 1936 (Hampstead). The full quotation written on 3 December by Martin reads that we ‘shall be in London from 10th to 13th of this month, when we are hoping to arrange our material.’  Martin, Letter (copy) to Lubetkin (3 Dec. 1936).  See, for example, Sadie Speight, Letter (draft) to Robert Maillart, Hull, 3 Sept. 1937, unpublished, manuscript, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936 – 8), RIBA, London: ‘Dear Herr Maillart, I must apologise most sincerely for not answering your letter of the 1st of August on an earlier date. I was, however, away from home when it arrived. I am very glad to hear of your interest in CIRCLE and I am sending herewith a copy which I shall be very glad if you will accept. We were delighted to have the opportunity of illustrating your most excellent Bridges[!] in the publication. We, the Editors, feel that your work formed a very important Section[!] in our book and we join in sending you our sincere thanks for your collaboration. With very best wishes. Yours sincerely, [not signed].’  See Marcel Breuer, Letter copy to Leslie Martin, 12 July 1937, unpublished, Marcel Breuer’s personal and literary correspondence while in London, 1936 – 1937, 2 folders in the Collection Francis Reginal Stevens Yorke (Ref nos. YoF/1/2 and YoF/2/2), RIBA London.  See Sales Manager for Faber and Faber, Letter to Mr Martin, 6 May 1938, unpublished, typescript, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936 – 8), RIBA, London.

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ea ‘before getting back our bare outlay without making any allowance at all for overhead expenses.’¹⁵⁹ In a letter to de la Mare, Leslie Martin informed the publishing-house that ‘final arrangements [had been made] for an exhibition of painting and sculpture organised by Circle’ to be held in London in July and suggested that this would ‘provide an excellent opportunity for increasing sales.’¹⁶⁰ It is unknown how many copies were actually sold in the exhibition that lasted not more than two weeks (Monday, 12 July to Saturday, 31 July 1937), but it could not have been so much as to convince the publishing-house to continue with a series of Circle, as outlined above.

2.3.2 Reviews of Circle and Further Publication Plans Circle received a number of contemporary reviews in eminent British journals and newspapers including New Statesman, The Times Literary Supplement, The Listener, The Studio and The Burlington Magazine. Some of these were reprinted in the 1982 catalogue to Circle, though without a discussion of them or citing from them.¹⁶¹ These reviews form the first responses to the publication and will be explored in the following. They were concerned with constructive art and the machine age, the question of the unity of constructive art, the relevance of society to art and the constructive as social realism. Circle was also critiqued as a publication that did not bring anything new. Writing for The London Mercury, a major monthly literary journal with a conservative outlook, William Gibson describes Circle as a publication which deals with abstract art that evolved from Cubism.¹⁶² He takes from Le Corbusier’s essay in Circle that the concrete ‘is really fundamentally abstract’ and cites

 Richard de la Mare, Letter to Leslie Martin, 2 March 1937, unpublished, typescript, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936 – 8), RIBA, London.  Leslie Martin, Letter to Richard de la Mare, 19 Feb. 1937, unpublished, typescript, The Sir Leslie Martin Papers (Leslie Martin’s papers concerning Circle, c. 1936 – 8), RIBA, London. De la Mare confirmed this in his letter of 22 Feb. 1937.  See N.N., ‘Articles and Extracts,’ in: Lewison (ed.), Circle. Constructive Art in Britain 193440, exhibition catalogue, Cambridge: Kettle’s Yard Gallery, 20 Feb. to 28 March 1982, 53 – 79. Searches with databases show that the reception was limited to Britain. See the Humanities Index, the New York Times, Nexis UK and JStor, databases that provide an index to journals and weekly magazines in the UK and/or other English speaking countries. The database of the Russian Central Newspapers, including The Moscow Times, also brought a negative result.  For here and the following, see William Gibson, ‘Abstract Art,’ The London Mercury, vol. xxxvi, no. 215, 9 Sept. 1937, 486.

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from Gabo’s essay on what is constructive. Gibson likes particularly Giedion’s essay on Maillart’s bridges because of their ‘simple, unaffected beauty’. He appreciates the ideas on the abstract and constructive, but does not see these realised in the book. For him, the book shares an optimism, though he would like to see more of the way in which the machine can increase liberty, a topic which he does not further outline, but which did play a role in the review published in The Times Literary Supplement, over a month earlier than Gibson’s text. The review in the The Times Literary Supplement, a weekly literary review newspaper published in London since 1902, was the first to respond to Circle, being published on 24 July 1937.¹⁶³ At that time, all reviews were published anonymously. Titled ‘Art in the air. Problems of the Machine Age’, the review concentrates on the relationship between Circle and the machine age. For the writer, constructive art forms the third stage of the machine age. The first two stages consist of the ‘rejection’ of the Machine Age, symbolised by William Morris’ work, and of ‘acceptance’ of the Machine Age expressed, for example, by artists such as Frank Brangwyn, Joseph Pennell, Charles Holmes and Paul Nash. The third stage is characterised by ‘identification.’ The article then focuses on the economic role of art works, quoting from Bernal’s essay published in Circle that ‘paintings and sculptures are purchasable objects’ and referring to Le Corbusier, according to whom one could also think of architecture as art for sale. With respect to Hepworth and Nicholson, the reviewer criticises their view that materials should be ‘cherished by themselves.’ Despite finding them ‘stimulating,’ the reviewer also criticises the essays by Read and Gabo, who use terms such as ‘pure’, which should only be applied to art that is unified. For the reviewer, there is no unity in the sections on sculpture and painting and even less in the section on architecture; if these works are unified at all, then it is by ‘formal sensibility.’ Despite such criticism on the disparity of the content, the review ends on a positive note, encouraging to take the striving for ‘unity’ further so as to represent the third stage of the machine age, that of self-identification with the machine age.¹⁶⁴

 For here and the following, see N.N., ‘Art in the Air. Problems of the Machine Age,’ The Times Literary Supplement, 24 July 1937, 539.  For a critical overview of the use of the term machine age within modernism, see Nicholas Daly, ‘The Machine Age,’ in: Brooker et al. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Modernisms, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, 1– 17 (online version). Although written on the basis of literary texts, he also suggests that there is not only the literature of technology of modernisms, but that there is a longer series of literature of technology, of which that related to modernism can be identified as the second industrial revolution linked to cumbustion engines, the use of electricity and new technologies of sound and image.

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The review in The Listener—one of the three most widely circulated weekly journals (next to The Spectator and New Statesman) and the one without direct association with a political party, being subsidised by the BBC—was published on 4 Aug. 1937, 11 days after the first review of Circle. It also focused on the machine age.¹⁶⁵ For the reviewer, constructive art is ‘essentially a machine age; it stands for order, precision, science, regimentation; continually in the art and science […], it is an art of laws and inflexibility, its aim is “perfection”.’ For the reviewer, too, the architecture, particularly as presented in the Le Corbusier’s essay, expresses best the idea of the machine age, because it has ‘assimilated the machine, “the function equals beauty.”’ Furthermore, the reviewer does not think art should admire science. Despite the criticism, the reviewer thinks of constructive art as one of the ‘most vital cultural advances of this century’ and that it forms ‘an integral part of life rather than an unnecessary adornment.’ However, it needs to deal better with the human role within it. Society and art was also the topic of the critic publishing in New Statesman, the other of the three most widely read magazines (next to The Listener and The Spectator) and the one associated with a left-wing view.¹⁶⁶ The review was the second (after the one in the Times Literary Supplement), appearing on the same day as the exhibition which accompanied the book launch closed.¹⁶⁷ Published anonymously, it was the most critical regarding social relevance and aesthetics. As the title suggests, it focused on the topic of anti-humanism. For the reviewer the book represents ‘one current tendency in visual art.’ This trend consists of ‘rigid geometrical forms’ and the ‘impersonality’ pursued by the artists mirroring or being able to be viewed as a ‘perfect expression’ of the rigidity and conformism of totalitarian states. The so-called totalitarian state ‘is ideally a society of which every member acts as mechanically as a valve or a piston, discarding all individuality.’ To illustrate this, the review refers to the ‘drills’ organised in Nuremberg and Moscow, which the reviewer found ‘disgusting’. This is the reason, why the reviewer considers geometrical beauty as inferior to the ‘beauty which is specifically human’, because geometrical forms do not transmit emotions. Consequently, the reviewer favours artists with ‘plastic expression and human emotion’ including Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Bonnard, Rouault and Cézanne. The critic also disparages the writings of Ben Nicholson, Hepworth and Gabo, citing from their essays, and wonders why an intellectual mind such as  For here and the following, see N.N., ‘no title,’ The Listener, vol. xviii, no. 447, 4 Aug. 1937, 259 – 60.  See R. M., ‘Anti-Humanism,’ New Statesman, vol. xix, no. 336, 31 July 1937, 190.  See London Gallery (ed.), Constructive Art, exhibition catalogue, London: London Gallery, 12 to 31 July 1937.

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Herbert Read has contributed to Circle, and singles out Le Corbusier, who is the ‘greatest living architect’. It must have hurt the editors, particularly Gabo, and contributors to the book, many of whom had fled those totalitarian governments of which the review speaks, that the reviewer argues that their art fits very well under Totalitarianism. Indeed, the totalitarian claim for art has been repeated by writers such as Wilhelmina van Ness, who speaks of the dilemma that it is generally assumed that Hitler persecuted the “degenerate” artists and intellectuals of Germany and Europe because they represented formal tendencies that were opposed. The substance and forms of major twentieth-century art, entertainment and social forms are, however, so similar that they suggest that artists, entertainers and intellectuals are persecuted and banished from totalitarian states when their works and theories compete rather than conflict with the forms and goals of twentieth-century totalitarian states.¹⁶⁸

She then refers to the ideas of progress and the relevance of technology as points of comparison. Tzvetan Todorov and Arthur Goldhammer even go so far as to claim that what ‘dictators and avant-garde have in common is their radicalism, their fundamentalism. Both are prepared to start ex nihilo, to take no account of what already exists, in order to construct a work based solely on their own criteria.’¹⁶⁹ Regarding the arts in Russia and the Soviet Union, Hammer and Lodder argue that the situation was usually more complicated than conventionally assumed, although they agree that in the years 1921 and 1922, the government took a utilitarian approach to Constructivism and promoted ‘realistic art, comprehensible and accessible to the people.’¹⁷⁰ They also speak of Gabo’s ‘distaste for the Constructivists’ abandonment of art in favour of purely utilitarian objectives.’ In the case of Nazi Germany, geometric, abstract and constructive art is stylistically a conflict. Nazi German aesthetics condemned these, forcing Bauhaus members and others to leave Germany, and exhibiting their art as degenerate. The critic writing for The Burlington Magazine claims that constructive art means ‘social realism.’¹⁷¹ With such a claim, the review acknowledges Circle’s

 See Wilhelmina Van Ness, ‘ART IN AMERICA. The Tragic Dilemma of Modern Art,’ The American Scholar, vol. 43, no. 2, 1974, 288 – 302.  Tzvetan Todorov and Arthur Goldhammer, ‘Avant-Gardes & Totalitarianism,’ Daedalus, vol. 136, no. 1, 2007, 51– 66, 65.  For here and in the following, see Hammer/Lodder, Constructing Modernity, 96 – 99. See also the chapter ‘Cold War Constructivism’ in: Benjamin Buchloh, Formalism and Historicity. Models and Methods in Twentieth-Century Art, Cambridge, Mass., London: MIT Press, 2015, 375 – 408.  See A. C. S., ‘no title,’ The Burlington Magazine, vol. lxxi, 1937, 246.

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concern to bring art and life together. This reviewer also praises the book for its interdisciplinarity and considers it to be ‘merely a statement of achievements’ rather than a manifesto. The monthly art journal The Studio was the most critical of the book in terms of avant-garde ideas. The critic did not find anything novel in the book, despite the editors claiming to find a new cultural unity ‘slowly emerging’, namely a ‘constructive trend.’¹⁷² Like the reviewer in The Burlington Magazine, he also criticises the ‘dehumanising and materialising’ process of the art works and suggests instead that a ‘cultural unity’ should be found in ‘humanism.’ To sum up, the reviews are mostly concerned with the role of art regarding society both in terms of politics and technological advancement. Despite its criticism, the book did not go unnoticed. None of the reviewers, however, referred to the accompanying exhibition at the London Gallery, which indicates a loose connection between book and exhibition. Furthermore, reviewers concentrated on the British artists, with the exception of Le Corbusier, who was recognised as one of the greatest architects of the time. Considering the range of nationalities and countries from which came the contributors and those who were asked to take part but finally did not, the critics also reveal a rather geographically isolated view in terms of modern art. None of the reviews refers to the topic of space; they mention that the book produces an overview of constructive art that is abstract. This is surprising in light of prior reviews of publications on Gabo and Hepworth, both contributors to Circle (as discussed below in Chapter Three), which identify constructive art with space. The reviews and impact of the book led the editors suggest a second edition in 1945, which, however, was never realised.¹⁷³ After 34 years, however, Faber and Faber, the original publishing-house, agreed to reprint Circle as a facsimile. Remembering Circle in 1982, Leslie Martin says that the editors ‘felt that it should remain a facsimile without any attempt on our part [i. e. the editors’ part] to reedit or to add a second introduction’, because Circle ‘spoke for its time—or rather for a particular set of ideas that seemed to us to be relevant then.’¹⁷⁴

 Here and in the following, N.N., ‘no title,’ The Studio, vol. cxix, no. 536, Nov. 1937, 277.  See also Faber and Faber, Letter to Ben Nicholson, [1945], unpublished, Ben Nicholson Papers, Tate Collection, London.  Martin, ‘Introduction’, 9.

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2.4 Concluding Remarks: Art Publishing and Social Network This chapter has brought to light the planning and publication of Circle, the reception of the book in 1937 and further publishing proposals related to Circle. As shown above, the planning of Circle was based on a collaboratively led process of negotiations and transformations of ideas, scripts and contributions, while the final publication was very much shaped, if not dictated, by the publishinghouse, which could not fulfil all of the aims of Circle’s editors. Hence Circle was the result of a compromise between those involved in the publication rather than a fully-formed idea put forward only by the editors, Gabo, Martin and Nicholson, who, however, successfully envisaged themselves at the beginning of the planning of the publications as the ones responsible for the content of Circle. The exploration above has also discussed themes that were already dealt with to some extent by scholars, particularly in the exhibition catalogue which accompanied a show on Circle at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge in 1982. These include the notion of ‘constructive’ and the social context of Circle, for which Beckett argued that Circle was the swan-song of English abstract art.¹⁷⁵ Moreover, architecture and the constructive idea was explored by Nicholas Bullock in the same book, who contextualised the book’s architectural contributions, arguing that by the time Circle was published, a number of modern buildings were already constructed and by 1938, when the MARS group opened an exhibition in the New Burlington Galleries, modern architecture was ‘firmly established.’¹⁷⁶ As shown above, compared with sculpture and painting as well as other types of art, the constructive idea seems to have been established in architecture earlier than in painting and sculpture. Bullock saw the contributions to Circle as representing a broad scope of views on architecture, united by the belief that the forms of architecture and the materials should reflect the new age.¹⁷⁷ Neither in the scholarship and the reviews of the 1930s nor in the planning of Circle, however, did concepts of space play a role, at least as far as the writing is concerned. All these writings following the publication of Circle (including the faisimile of Circle), nevertheless, can be understood, in view of a Spatial Art History, not only as confirmation and interpretation, but as a transformation of the ideas of Circle, which functions as an actor for initiating this. The publications themselves are part of a process rather than singular and unconnected, each contributing to the shaping and reshaping of the idea of constructive art.

 See Beckett, ‘Circle. The Theory and Patronage of Constructive Art in the Thirties’, 19.  Bullock, ‘Circle and the Constructive Idea in Architecture’, 33 – 37.  See ibid., 33.

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Examining the organisation of Circle in distributing tasks and selecting early on supporters of the editors, permanent contributors and other contributors, and their relationships with each other, provides a magnifying insight into modern art-journal publishing. The same goes for Circle’s financial planning and marketing strategies that seemingly confirm practices of publications listed in Circle, an observation which, however, demands further close analysis that cannot be provided here. Indeed, Circle has only contributed to Constructivism in the West, because its published reception was exclusively English despite also selling copies in the USA, Switzerland and France at the time; furthermore its planning and publication itself, considering also the illustrations as contributions of artists to Circle, demonstrates a firm placing of its content within the West, despite being based on a wide network in geographical terms that was achieved by correspondence. It can be interpreted as a network created through both the personal relationships that helped shape Circle, and through the ideas of Circle itself, which made the editors choose certain artists and art critics as contributors, while others were excluded. In view of the spatial methodology suggested in the Introduction, this means that both things, and the social, formed a correlative relationship in the act of producing, reproducing and transforming Circle. The analysis of the roles within this process, particularly of the editors, contributors and the publishing-house, illustrate in particular how Circle produced a network of continuous associations, exploiting a method now widely known in sociology as snowball sampling, according to which existing participants of a research study recruit among their acquaintances. It is particularly successful in discovering hidden populations. Indeed, Circle applied such a method and therefore was able to create a much larger network with more actors than without the help or acceptance of suggestions made by contributors. Such a network is not flat but marked by differing densities as well as spacing between the subject and the object that the actors created, as the example with Breuer demonstrates: unlike the other essays, his is the longest in Circle, therefore producing not only a constituting association with Circle but also one that is dominant in view of the rest of the publication. In light of movements, the assumption of a network in which everything is related also raises questions about movements defined as opposing each other. As shown above, Surrealism and constructive art on the one hand, but also constructive art, Constructivism and abstract art on the other seem to form ‘isms’ marked by relationality rather than essentialism, as these can be connected with each other, producing, reproducing and transforming each other, being, in certain respects, closer together or more distant, but never unrelated. Such a viewpoint puts emphasis on questions why and in which respects they have

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actually been defined as opposites rather than on issues of their definition as singularities. The same goes for concepts of space. As the next chapter will bring to light, there is not just one concept of constructive space but several marked by certain aspects with which they can be closely associated, namely by ideas of space as material and as dynamic. This does not mean that one cannot produce definitions at all; but indicating their relationality to others, for example, by way of pluralising phenomena or indicating in which respects the association takes place, helps signal that kind of understanding. Hence, the next chapter deals with ‘ideas of constructive space’ rather than with ‘constructive space’ as such.

3 Spatial Concepts in Circle and Beyond This chapter will investigate the concepts of space in Circle, a topic which has not been considered yet in the reviews and secondary literature to the publication of 1937. The reason may well be that space was not mentioned in the records of the planning of Circle and only in three of 23 written contributions published in Circle. These consist of Gabo’s main article, in which he distinguishes clearly between a volume of mass and a volume of space, which correspond respectively to carving and construction. Space as well as mass are materials and conceived of as being concrete: things-in-themselves rather than existing a priori as ideas. Both mass and space are associated with the constructive idea. However, Gabo prefers construction, using space rather than mass. Space as material is a concept arguably closely related to those of Hepworth and Read. Furthermore, space plays a role in Barbara Hepworth’s contribution on sculpture, which she begins by stating that ‘full sculptural expression is spatial’,¹ and in Read’s essay which argues that abstract art, with a reliance on formal elements, can ‘create and affirm’ the concept of space.’² In addition to Read, Hepworth and Gabo, some of those who contributed an essay though not referring to space specifically, did so in their later writings and works, such as Ben Nicholson in his ‘Notes on “Abstract Art”’ published first in 1941 and Sigfried Giedion whose book Space, Time and Architecture of 1941 became one of the landmarks in the education of architects. Others had occupied themselves with space before their contribution to Circle, including Moholy-Nagy who had created the socalled Light-Space Modulator exhibited first in 1930, but did not find it relevant to illustrate in or write on the topic in Circle. While this chapter takes the writings in Circle as its springboard and therefore will not investigate their concepts, they should at least be mentioned here. While all these concepts differ, they are united by an emphasis on space as material, a thing-in-itself, which is closely associated with the constructive idea and therefore may be termed constructive space. Analysing the written contributions to Circle by Gabo, Hepworth and Read, this chapter will therefore show the relevance of space within Circle and then also trace the relationship of space to their entire work. It will be argued that their ideas were closely related to each other in the years around 1937, when the two sculptors and the art critic formed a close group, to which also Ben Nicholson can be counted, and which is well established in scholarship. Indeed, the sculptors had studios located close to that of Herbert Read in London’s Hamp Hepworth, ‘Sculpture’, 113.  Read, ‘The Faculty of Abstraction’, 65. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110595338-004

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stead and from September 1939 in Cornwall.³ Thus, while the closeness of the artistic group has already been recognised, this chapter will explore in which ways their art works relate to these relationships. Such an analysis is not only significant because it contributes to aesthetic ideas of modernism, which has neglected concepts of space so far, but also because it will show how aesthetic ideas and artistic practices relate to types of social relations, drawing connections from the theories and practices to the social rather than considering it the other way round or analysing the network of people and that of art works separately. In this way, the chapter will bring up the potential for a methodological expansion of existing scholarship on other groups, such as the Bloomsbury Group and The Camden Town Group. To this extent, Michael Farrell’s work is rather relevant, because he has explored how creativity relates to group dynamics, arguing that art is the outcome of collaborative circles that are created by actors finding themselves on the margins and therefore coming together.⁴ His case studies include groups of typically three to five members, rarely more than seven to eight. The group’s lifetime usually is about 10 to 15 years and goes through seven stages: formation (1), rebellion (2), negotiating a new vision and establishing its own central identity (3), creative work, which also involves splitting into smaller collaborative pairs who paint or write side by side (4), acting together to present their work (5), a stage in which the group breaks apart (6) and a reassembling several years later for nostalgic reasons (7). Although defining seven stages, not all of his case studies go through all stages. Such a model is meant to contradict particularly those who argue that new circles and new ideas form around previous lineages of eminence (hereditary versus marginal), particularly in cases of intellectual eminence rather than creative ones.⁵ The entire set-up of the group under

 See Read, ‘A Nest of Gentle Artists’, 7. Read moved his office to his home in Broom House, near Beaconsfield in September 1939 because of the war. There were more artists who had Mall Studios located behind Parkhill Road in Hampstead. For the reason why the others did not necessarily share the same ideas of space (above all the Surrealists, such as Paul Nash), see the concluding remarks to this chapter. For Cornwall, see Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 269.  See Michael P. Farrell, Collaborative Circles. Friendship Dynamics and Creative Work, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001, 166 – 296. On creative sociability, see also Nina Lübbren, Rural Artists’ Colonies in Europe, 1870-1910, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001, particularly 17– 36.  For such approaches in sociology, see, for example, Randall Collins, The Sociology of Philosophies. A Global Theory of Intellectual Change, Cambridge, Mass., London: Belknap, 1998 and Harriet Zuckerman, ‘Nobel Laureates in Science: Patterns of Productivity, Collaboration, and Authorship,’ American Sociological Review, vol. 32, no. 3, 1967, 391– 403.

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consideration here, therefore, is rather applicable to Farrell’s approach, although Farrell himself does not refer to this group. Indeed, his method helps identify how art (theory and practice) and groups relate to each other. In view of this chapter, the concepts of space and the writings in Circle may form what Farrell identified as Stage Three. By exploring space as a key concept of the group, its analysis will expand Farrell’s ideas in view of why creativity is related to friendship groups in two aspects: first it is not just any creativity but the aesthetic ideas and practices can be closely associated with each other; and second, a spatial methodology would identify friendship as a density of associations, namely of a professional and a personal nature, therefore creating a cloud, in which the actors, namely the art works and the artists, are closely grouped around each other. In the case of Gabo and Hepworth as well as of Nicholson, there is even a sharing of everyday life, which is a third kind of association that could be added to the professional and personal. In other words, the more associations that can be formed the more densely related seem to be both the actors and the art works. The concepts of space will be explored through both the written essays and illustrations of works by the artists in Circle and situated within the writers’ further works. In the case of the sculptors, their concepts will then be applied to their sculptures as an interpretative tool. Concepts are understood in the sense of Mieke Bal: namely as travelling between people ‘through a non-linear history, which is part and parcel of conceptual mobility.’⁶ She further assumes that concepts are always in a ‘process of becoming, a process that involves developing relations with other concepts situated on the same plane […]. Every concept relates back to other concepts, hence, the discussion of visuality ends up in a cluster of concepts.’⁷ In our case, this cluster is spatially related and will be situated as such. In the following, I will begin with Gabo, as space plays the most prominent role in his essay in Circle, followed by Hepworth and Read.

3.1 Naum Gabo: Space as Material and the Role of Constructions Gabo contributed two essays to Circle titled ‘The Constructive Idea in Art’ (featured in the Editorial section) and ‘Sculpture—Carving and Construction in

 Mieke Bal, Travelling Concepts in the Humanities. A Rough Guide / Mieke Bal. London: University of Toronto Press, 2002, 40.  Ibid., 51.

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Space’ (part of the Sculpture section).⁸ Five of his sculptures—being dated in Circle as 1920 (two sculptures), 1928, 1929 and 1933—were illustrated in the sculpture section before the essays (Circle, figs. 5 – 8 and 23). One of the works belonged to Winifred Dacre who also contributed a short essay to Circle in which she, however, does not refer to space, Gabo or the illustration. Nevertheless, owing a work by Gabo—namely Construction dated 1933 (Fig. 3.2 analysed below), and listed in Circle as belonging to Winifred Nicholson, Dacre’s married name, indicates an interest in the sculptor’s work. Another of Gabo’s works, entitled Construction in Space, features at the end of the entire section without a date and without appearing in the illustration list at the end of the book. In addition to these six works, two further ones by Gabo are reproduced as part of his essay: one at the beginning, namely his Two Cubes, and the other one at its end, his Kinetic Construction (1919/20), along with a drawing illustrating the working of the sculpture.⁹ Unlike the foregoing photographs, there are formal references in the text to these images surrounding Gabo’s essay, therefore, in the real sense of the word, they illustrate the essay. Gabo refers to the boxes as ‘two cubes’, interpreting them in the way as described below. The illustration and drawing at the end of his essay are named ‘kinetic constructions’. Their design, so Gabo, demonstrates ‘an explanation of the idea of a kinetic sculpture.’¹⁰ These works that directly relate to Gabo’s essay will play a specific role in the first section below, which will introduce the sculptor’s concepts of space by drawing associations between Gabo’s essay and his other publications and philosophical ideas encountered by him on the concept of space, to show the crucial distancing between two apparently very different approaches to space which Gabo termed ‘volume of mass’ and ‘volume of space.’ The interpretation of Gabo’s written contributions to Circle will be followed by an analysis of Gabo’s work—with an emphasis on those reproduced in Circle and those that were produced around the time of the publication of Circle—in the light of his concepts of space.

 See Naum Gabo, ‘The Constructive Idea in Art,’ in: Gabo et al. (eds.), Circle. International Survey of Constructive Art, London: Faber and Faber, 1937, 1– 10 and Gabo, ‘Sculpture. Carving and Construction in Space’. For this section on Gabo, I am particularly grateful for comments and suggestions given by Nina Williams (Naum Gabo’s daughter), Professor Christina Lodder and Andrea Zierer (Tate Archive, London).  This drawing was also reproduced in Abraham Chanin, Naum Gabo, Ruth Latta and Antoine Pevsner (eds.), Naum Gabo; Antoine Pevsner (with an Introduction by Herbert Read), exhibition catalogue, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1948, 18 with the caption ‘Design for Kinetic Construction. 1922. Pen and ink. Owned by the U.S.S.R.’ The works are illustrated below next to their analysis.  Gabo, ‘Sculpture. Carving and Construction in Space’, 109.

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3.1.1 Distinguishing Mass and Space from Each Other Gabo’s concerns with space can be traced back to his seminal Realistic Manifesto of 1920, co-signed by his brother Antoine Pevsner, in which five artistic polarities are formulated, two of which are dedicated to space: depth over volume and spatial depth over solid mass. While the Realistic Manifesto also deals with time and movement as well as line and colour, space forms the sole focus of an essay entitled ‘The Problems of Space and Time and Their Falsification’ (written in German around 1925), in which Gabo explicitly develops a concept of space and draws attention to the meaning of the German term Raum: ‘There is “space” to designate the cosmos and “space” as a closed room (cell), viewed from within. It is obvious that these two concepts have been confused with one another, at least insofar as the second concept is more familiar.’¹¹ These two concepts are differentiated by Gabo through perceptual perspective here. While the former one is the one which the spectators create by distancing themselves from it, the latter one is the space which is finite, surrounded by a form. Gabo, however, favours the first one, a preference that will become clearer in his writings following this text. As it will be shown, he wanted to construct objects that defy mass that produced a closed volume. Time is also relevant as it is not a ‘function’, as he notes, ‘but a purely philosophical concept for movement itself, without reference to cause and effect’.¹² At the end of this text, Gabo refers to the Realistic Manifesto, emphasising that there ‘is no need at all to give this concept of space a new name […]. For the concept does not differ at all or in any way from that given in The Realistic Manifesto.’¹³ This concept of space is closely associated with that which Gabo held in the 1930s. In his first theoretical statement in English, published in The Listener in 1936 and entitled ‘Constructive Art’, Gabo argues that ‘the vocation of the art of our epoch is not to reproduce Nature but to create and enrich it’.¹⁴ For him, sculpture should do the same; it should literally ‘create’ space, make space visi Naum Gabo, ‘The Problems of Space and Time and Their Falsification (c. 1925),’ in: Hammer and Lodder (eds.), Gabo on Gabo. Texts and Interviews, Forest Row: Artists Bookworks, 2000, 40 – 4, 42.  Ibid., 43.  Ibid., 44. Jack Burnham, Beyond Modern Sculpture. The Effects of Science and Technology on the Sculpture of this Century, London: A. Lane, 1968, 150 notes (though without giving any source) that Gabo’s manifesto ‘has been quoted as one of the first affirmations in sculpture of space as a primary concern.’  Naum Gabo, ‘Constructive Art’, The Listener, London, vol. 16, no. 408, 1936, 846 – 8, 846. See also the typescript of this article, p. 2, 6 pages (TGA 9313/2/3/2, Gabo Archive, The Tate Archive, London).

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Fig. 3.1: Naum Gabo, Two Cubes, reproduced in: Gabo et al. (eds), Circle, London 1937, 103

ble, and with that create a new reality. He also makes a very intriguing comparison with music: ‘Music, for instance, was always free from the obligation or even temptation to reproduce Nature. Nature does not know musical notes just as it does not know multiplication tables and geometry.’¹⁵ With the comparison to music, Gabo emphasises the independence of the arts from any need to reproduce nature; instead, art, and with it sculpture, has its own force. While Gabo’s essay ‘The Constructive Idea in Art’ in Circle deals with the constructive idea and its relationship to other art movements, his essay ‘Sculpture: Carving and Construction in Space’, refers directly to space, echoing some of the thoughts previously voiced. However, it is this essay that outlines a new principle that should be applied to sculpture, the ‘so-called construction in space, which kills the whole essential basis of sculpture as being the art of solid masses’.¹⁶ He then refers, didactically, to two cubes, reproduced at the beginning of the essay (Fig. 3.1 and on the cover of this book). These two cubes, although not the same model, have been used by Gabo in publications previous to Circle, the first time in 1920, when mentioned in the Re-

 Gabo, ‘Constructive Art’, 846.  Gabo, ‘Sculpture. Carving and Construction in Space’, 104.

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Fig. 3.1 A: Naum Gabo, Two Cubes, 1930, Tate Collection, London

alistic Manifesto as a demonstration of the spatial method of his stereometric figures.¹⁷ In Circle the artist uses the illustration to distinguish between the two kinds of representation of the same object, one corresponding to carving and the other to construction. The main points which distinguish them lie in the different methods of execution and in the different centres of interest. The first [cube] represents a volume of mass; the second represents the space in which the mass exists made visible. Volume of mass and volume of space are sculpturally not the same thing. Indeed, they are two different materials […]. We consider space from an entirely different point of view. We consider it as an absolute sculptural element, released from any closed volume, and we represent it from inside with its own specific properties.¹⁸

Gabo here introduces two perspectives on material, that of mass and that of space. The former represents volume as closed and the latter as being released from any closed volume, a kind of space as open. For Gabo, these are opposite expressions of a constructive idea. What Gabo introduces as an ‘entirely different point of view’ is indeed, that space is material, understood as ‘concrete’, not imagined, but ‘real’ like mass: it ‘must be emphasized that I do not use these two

 These were also shown in Gabo’s first exhibition in August 1920, which accompanied the publication of the Realistic Manifesto (see Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 58 – 9). The two cubes reproduced in Circle are models dated 1930 and reproduced here as Fig. 3.1 A.  Gabo, ‘Sculpture. Carving and Construction in Space’, 106 – 7. The two cubes are models dated 1930, held by the Tate Collection (T02166).

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terms [space and mass] in their highly philosophical sense. I mean two very concrete things with which we come in contact every day. Two such obvious things as mass and space, both concrete and measurable.’¹⁹ Indeed, Gabo seems to make a distinction between space as material—that is for him as ‘concrete’ as mass and used in sculptural practice, namely space in construction and mass in carving—and space as an a priori idea, the latter being part of a philosophical discussion. His concept of space relies mainly on opposites, so one can put pairs into a table that may help understand the cubes (Figs. 3.1 and 3.1 A) as follows: Cube on the left

Cube on the right

Volume of mass

Space in which the mass exists made visible

Volume of mass

Volume of space

Mass

Space

Closed volume

Released from any closed volume

Space as enclosed

Open, represented from inside with its own specific properties

Carving

Construction

Mass and space: materials, concrete, measurable and not to be understood as a philosophical question

What Gabo distinguishes with the two cubes are two methods to use space and make space visible. For him the process of carving, of cutting away from a mass such as wood, seems to mean precisely that: it is about the cutting away of mass which results in making the space visible. Construction, on the other hand, is also a combination of space and (other) materials, but instead of taking away anything, it uses space to make space visible. In both cases, space is visible, but, for Gabo, the methods conceive of space in opposite ways: while the former deals with space as enclosed, the latter conceives of space as open. The emphasis in the former is therefore on form and in the latter on space. In philosophical terms, such an understanding of space may seem contrary to an understanding of space as material, because one may assume of space as existing and as being made visible, or, in Gabo’s words ‘space in which the mass exists made visible.’ The latter could therefore be interpreted as space as not existing as material, in need of being produced. In this way, Gabo would assume two concepts of space: one that conceives of space as a thing-in-itself and another one that does not. For

 Ibid., 106.

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Gabo, space did exist as materiality; the differentiation of the cubes is about a differentiation in emphasis on the mass on the one hand and on the space on the other, on the form on the one hand and space on the other, both making space (that is physical) visible. Gabo prefers the cube on the right which he defines also as stereometric, a term and topic which will be outlined further below when analysing Gabo’s constructions. Conceiving of space as material, however, can closely be associated with debates on space arising from around the second half of the nineteenth century.

3.1.2 Philosophical Associations of Gabo’s Concept of Space Gabo’s concept of space can be associated with philosophical debates occurring at the time when Gabo studied philosophy at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich at the beginning of the twentieth century.²⁰ This university, in contrast to the Technical University of Munich, concentrated more on the theoretical aspects of science (mathematics and physics) rather than on the practical side of these subjects.²¹ For the academic year 1912– 13, Gabo changed his registration from the medical faculty, where he had been enrolled since the winter semester of 1910/11, to that of philosophy, registering for modules on logic, logic and cognition and Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. While lecture scripts have not survived, discussions at the time centred, indeed, around space. Therefore, the following section will not only help understand Gabo better, but also clarify two fundamentally different perspectives on space that have been far-reaching: the one being closely associated with Kantian ideas and the other with non-Euclidean geometry that can be related to a growing emphasis on materialism since the nineteenth century with Marx as the focal point. The debates arising from such developments sparked new discussions about Kant, conventionally being known under the term Neokantianism. An analysis of Kant and non-Euclidean geometry in view of Gabo’s concept of space adds connections not yet being spel-

 Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Personalstand, winter semester 1910/11 to summer semester 1914, unpublished, Archive of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich. Gabo was enrolled under his birth name Nehemia Pewsner.  Martin Hammer and Christina Lodder, ‘Introduction,’ in: Hammer and Lodder (eds.), Gabo on Gabo. Texts and Interviews, Forest Row: Artists Bookworks, 2000, 5 – 18, 6 mention that Gabo also followed courses in civil engineering at the Technical University, ‘although he may not have been officially enrolled’ (6). See also Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 27, where they discuss in more detail Gabo’s studies of engineering.

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led out in this way to those findings by scholarship, such as that of Hammer and Lodder, who stipulate that Gabo was ‘profoundly shaped by his encounter with modern German philosophy’.²² The following section therefore draws lines to the interest in space preceding the publication of Circle and thus forms another thread of enquiry to that of Russian artists, who also referred to space as material to whom Gabo has usually been related to by secondary literature.

The concept of space as a priori and its challenge by Euclidean geometry For Kant, space is an a priori ‘intuition’ preceding any representation (or, to be precise, any presentation); it is non-relational, transcendental, the necessary condition (together with time) for anything empirical or experiential, including the conception and perception of any object, to be. In his Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of Understanding, Kant adds to his explanation of space and time as a priori that they are subject to understanding, and gives the following example: ‘in order to cognize something in space, e. g., a line, I must draw it, and thus synthetically bring about a determinate combination of the given manifold, so that the unity of this action is at the same time the unity of consciousness (in the concept of a line), and thereby is an object (a determinate space) first cognized’.²³ Such an understanding of space and form in which space is not a-thing-initself but goes before anything, before any form is contrary to Gabo’s understanding of space as material understood as a-thing-in-itself. It is intriguing to note that both Kant and Gabo were interested in science: while Kant executed his Critique of Pure Reason with reference to mathematics, Gabo demonstrated a keen interest in physical science. The marked difference between Gabo and Kant, however, is that Kant’s explanation of physical space was written at a time when Euclidean geometry was still widely accepted.²⁴ Euclidean geometry was disseminated by Euclid’s Elements (written c. 300 B.C.), a book which applied the notion of a priori. ²⁵ Gabo’s theory, on the other hand, namely that space can

 See Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 22.  Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Guyer and Wood (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, B 137, 249.  See Gary Hatfield, ‘Kant on the Perception of Space (and Time),’ in: Guyer (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, 61– 93, 88.  Euclid’s Elements (which was actually written in Greek) was translated into many languages, amongst them Latin and German. As Kant considers his metaphysical structure for experience a

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be a-thing-in-itself, can be related to an understanding that is based on a disproving of Euclid, commonly known as non-Euclidean geometry.

Non-Euclidean geometry and the possibility of space as material Non-Euclidean geometry has been closely related to Nikolai Lobachevsky and János Bolyai, who experimented with hyperbolic geometry, and Bernhard Riemann, who drew attention to curvature tensors. Principally, all challenged the laws of lines, developed by Euclid on flat surfaces, by experimenting with hyperbolic and elliptic forms: these forms allow the drawing of an infinite number of lines, and, although these lines may approach a given line as they are extended to infinity, they will never intersect.²⁶ Parallel lines, which in Euclidian geometry remain at a constant distance from one another (as it only assumes surfaces as flat), will curve towards each other, while in hyperbolic geometry, due to the spheric surface, parallel lines curve away, increasing in distance as one moves further away from the point of intersection. For Gabo, as he noted in 1957, the ‘visual character of space is not angular: […] to transfer the perception of space into sculptural terms, it has to be spheric’.²⁷ If the lines are not parallel anymore and therefore space not defined by the parallel lines (that can only show a space as enclosed between these lines that define it), they open up an infinite space from that point of crossing, curve away and therefore create a space as open that Gabo also called stereometric. What is needed to illustrate this idea in sculpture is not any form but a spheric form. Indeed, Gabo experimented with spheric forms; all his works reproduced in Circle and preceding the essay on space consist of various spheres forming complex three-dimensionalities, as analysed closely below. Gabo’s sculptural constructions exploiting spheres, indeed, set him apart from Kant in view of the concept of space. For Gabo, space is material, while for Kant, space exists a priori as an idea. For Gabo, mass is also material like

priori, so does Euclid his geometrical structure for space; see Graham Bird, ‘Introduction (Part III),’ in: Bird (ed.), A Companion to Kant, Malden, Mass.; Oxford: Blackwell, 2006, 251– 8, 252.  Gabo called them curves. See, for example, Gabo, ‘The Constructive Idea in Art’, 3: ‘In general, there cannot be different opinions as to the psychological effect on a man of a circle or a square or a straight line or a hyperbolic curve.’ See also Michael Compton, ‘ Gabo: Mathematics & Science,’ in: Naum Gabo. Sixty Years of Constructivism, exhibition catalogue, London: The Tate Gallery, 1987, 24– 7, 26.  Naum Gabo, Gabo. Constructions, Sculpture, Paintings, Drawings, Engravings. With Introductory Essays by Herbert Read and Leslie Martin, London: Lund Humphries, 1957, no page (text printed before fig. 64).

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space, both concrete and measurable. This means that both cubes—that of the volume of mass and that of volume of space—conceive of space not as a priori, necessary for then putting it into form. Both mass and space are each conceived by Gabo as a thing-in-itself, a ‘reality’. Therefore Gabo referred to the German word ‘space’ as a synonym for ‘universe’, for him an ‘existing’ space.

Debates on sculpture, perception and form The two perspectives on how to perceive of space, namely as material or as an a priori idea that needs to be put into form sparked much debate from the last third of the nineteenth century on. Indeed, such discussions led to the formulation of early perception theories, because, if things-in-themselves exist, the question arises as to how these can be perceived. Such theories became known as Gestalt psychology at the Berlin School of Experimental Psychology under Carl Stumpf.²⁸ In Munich, debates were led by the sculptor Adolf Hildebrand and Conrad Fiedler, with a focus on questions of the production of art works in view of perception theories. In 1893, four years after moving to Munich to work on a monumental fountain, Hildebrand published a book about the problems of form in visual arts, a relatively small volume which was widely read and has become a seminal work in scholarship.²⁹ This book put forward a perception theory based on an ‘awareness’ of a three-dimensional object achieved by the viewer moving towards and away from it, and touching an object with one’s hands or eyes, the latter meant in a figurative sense.³⁰ According to Hildebrand, the sculptor needs to bring the awareness into form, so that the essence of the object is translated into an effective form. He thus sails around empathy theory’s reliance on emotion and around intellectual processes, emphasising instead the creative artistic act. As noted by Hatt and Klonk, Fiedler, with whom Hildebrand regularly discussed his thoughts, took a radically different position.³¹ In his most

 For Gestalt psychology/theory that was particularly relevant for the Bauhaus, see Geert-Jan Boudewijnse, ‘Gestalt Theory and Bauhaus. A Correspondence between Roy Behrens, Brenda Danilowitz, William S. Huff, Lothar Spillmann, Gerhard Stemberger and Michael Wertheimer in the summer of 2011,’ Gestalt Theory, vol. 34, no. 1, 2012, 81– 98; D. Brett King, Max Wertheimer & Gestalt Theory, New Brunswick, N.J.; London: Transaction, 2005, 157– 8 and Crétien Campen, ‘Early Abstract Art and Experimental Gestalt Psychology,’ Leonardo, vol. 30, no. 2, 133 – 6.  Adolf von Hildebrand, Das Problem der Form in der bildenden Kunst … Fü nfte unverä nderte Auflage, Strassburg: Heitz & Mündel, 1905 (first published 1893).  Ibid., 19 – 20.  Michael Hatt and Charlotte Klonk, Art History. A Critical Introduction to Its Methods, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006, 70. For the biographical connection, see the homepage for Adolf von Hildebrand http://www.adolf-von-hildebrand.de.

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renowned publication on the origin of artistic activity, Fiedler formulates a theory of perception whereby the artist first has to conceive of an art work before producing it.³² Like Hildebrand, he was concerned with the production of an art work, but unlike Hildebrand, he shifted the emphasis from a translation of an ‘essence into an effective form’ to the act of the making. In a review of a book on Fiedler’s art theory, Heinrich Wölfflin compared Kant and Fiedler, concluding that unlike Kant’s approach, for Fiedler, it is only through the making that the artist ‘wins’ the form in which nature can truly be made visible.³³ Once produced, the perception of an object was not based on a touch or distancing from the art work (as it was for Hildebrand), but rather on that which could be observed. Both Hildebrand and Fiedler, however, assumed of the object as a thing-in-itself. This latter idea differs from that of Kant, for whom objects of experience (phenomena) were not things-in-themselves, but could only be perceived and therefore were objects in the classical sense or, as they are usually considered, ‘only’ phenomena of the mind.³⁴ Regarding the definition of space, the consideration of the art object as a thing-in-itself can be closely associated with that of Gabo’s concept of space as material instead of space as an idea. Furthermore, Gabo’s emphasis on the construction of a work to make space visible may be associated with that of Fiedler’s focus on the act of making. Such comparisons underline the relevance of such debates as those by Fiedler and Hildebrand for the understanding of Gabo’s concept of space (and mass) as things-in-themselves. Thus Gabo does not ‘create’ but rather ‘constructs’ art works, assuming it as a kind of assemblage of materials that also include space.

 See Conrad Fiedler, ‘Über den Ursprung der künstlerischen Tätigkeit,’ in: Fiedler (ed.), Konrad Fiedlers Schriften über Kunst (vol. 1: Über die Beurteilung von Werken der bildenden Kunst), Munich: Piper, 1887, 187– 367.  See Heinrich Wölfflin, ‘Review of Hermann Konnert, Die Kunsttheorie Conrad Fiedlers (Piper: Munich and Leipzig, 1909),’ Repetitorium für Kunstwissenschaft, vol. 33, 1910, 551– 2: ‘Wie Kant als Erkenntistheoretiker davon ausging, den Begriff der Erfahrung zu analysieren, so ist für Fiedlers Äesthetik [sic] Ausgangspunkt die Analyse des Begriffs der Sichtbarkeit. Und wie Kant dazu kam, [sic] zu sagen: die Grundsätze, nach denen für uns Erfahrung möglich ist, sind zugleich die Gesetze der Natur, so gelangte Fiedler zu der These: Erst in der künstlerischen Form kann die Wirklichkeit von uns aufgefaßt werden. Man darf nicht glauben, von der Natur aus über Kunst urteilen zu können, vielmehr macht die Kunst uns erst fähig, Natur zu sehen […]. Das Entscheidende bleibt aber eben das Machen, das Gestalten mit der Hand. Erst dadurch gewinnt der Künstler die Form, in der die Natur wahrhaft sichtbar werden kann.’  See Gottfried Boehm, ‘Einleitung,’ in: Boehm (ed.), Konrad Fiedler. Schriften zur Kunst, vol. 1 (Munich: Piper & Co, 1913), Munich: Fink, 1991, v–xxx, xxv.

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Fiedler’s book was reviewed by Wölfflin, one of Gabo’s tutors when studying at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Munich, attending courses on Albrecht Dürer (summer semester 1912), Rubens and Rembrandt (winter semester 1912/13), the Italian Renaissance (summer semester 1913) and the history of graphic art (winter semester 1913/14).³⁵ In August 1912 (Gabo had just concluded his first module taught by Wölfflin), Wölfflin reported in a letter to his sister that he had begun working on his theoretical monograph Principles of Art History, first published in German in 1915.³⁶ In this book, he distinguishes a set of formal elements for art, one of these being ‘closed and open form’. For Wölfflin, closed and open form are equivalent to tectonic and a-tectonic, explained as follows: What is meant is a style of composition which, with more or less tectonic means, makes of the picture a self-contained entity, pointing everywhere back to itself, while, conversely, the style of open form everywhere points out beyond itself and purposely looks limitless, although, of course, secret limits continue to exist, and make it possible for the picture to be self-contained in the aesthetic sense.³⁷

Wölfflin explains the notion of open form with many examples from local museums. For him it means that ‘figures (are) set in space without filling it’; it compresses energies and angles or lines of motion reaching out beyond the composition.³⁸ He also uses ‘flux’ to describe open form and links it historically with the Baroque period, because of this style’s ‘energy’ of ‘handling’ masses set in contrast to the ‘repose and reserve of the High Renaissance’.³⁹ While some close associations to Gabo can be drawn, particularly regarding the aspect of space seemingly reaching out of the art object, there are also issues that keep them apart from each other: Wölfflin’s theory accepts ‘secret’ limits, while Gabo does not say anything about this, as space was thought of as material and not as an idea, the latter bringing Wölfflin close to Kant, to whom he refers directly in his conclusion to his set of formal elements:

 Naum Gabo (registered under Pewsner, Nehemia, Gabo’s birth name), Studienbücher, University of Munich, 1912-14, unpublished, Archive of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich.  Heinrich Wölfflin, ‘Letter to his sister, Munich, 28 August 1912,’ in: Gantner (ed.), Heinrich Wölfflin. 1864 – 1945. Autobiographie, Tagebücher und Briefe, Basel/Stuttgart: Schwabe, 1982, 267– 8. See also Heinrich Wölfflin, ‘Das Problem des Stils in the bildenden Kunst,’ Sitzungsberichte der Königlich preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin), vol. 31, 1912, 572– 8 and Heinrich Wöllfflin, ‘Wie man Skulpturen aufnehmen soll?,’ Zeitschrift fur Bildende Kunst (Leipzig), vol. 26, 1914, 237– 44.  Heinrich Wö lfflin, Principles of Art History, translated by M. D. Hottinger, London: G. Bell & Sons, 1932, 124.  Ibid., 228 (with reference to, what Wölfflin called, Rubens’ procession of children).  Ibid., 12.

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Although they clearly run in one direction, they are still not derived from one principle (to a Kantian mentality they would look merely adventitious). It is possible that still other categories could be set up—I could not discover them—and those given here are not so closely related that they could not be imagined in a partly different combination.⁴⁰

Although he assumes a mingling of Kantian ideas, as Joan Hart has shown in detail, Wölfflin aligned himself closely with Kant and Neokantianism.⁴¹ Indeed, he speaks of form as open rather than of space as open, indicating a focus on the form and assuming that ‘space’ is philosophical but not conceived as ‘concrete’, as Gabo does.

Gabo’s concept of sculptures as constructions ‘in’ space and the relevance of rhythm An association of Gabo’s work with Henri Bergson’s ideas has already been noted by Alexei Pevsner, Gabo’s brother.⁴² However, it has not been associated with Gabo’s concept of space, and thus seems to be relevant here. The most obvious trace of this impact is his emphasis on rhythm, possibly also illustrated by Gabo’s titles of those sculptures being named ‘in space’, such as the series Linear Construction in Space, which will be analysed below (3.1.3). Bergson’s most widely read book was Time and Free Will, published in French in 1889 and translated into several languages, including German in 1889 and English in 1910.⁴³ For Bergson, Kant has confused space and time in a mixture, with the result that we must conceive human action as determined by natural causality. Bergson offers a twofold response. First, in order to define consciousness and therefore freedom, Bergson proposes to differentiate between  Ibid., 227.  See Joan Hart, ‘Reinterpreting Wölfflin: Neo-Kantianism and Hermeneutics,’ Art Journal, vol. 42, no. 4, 292– 300, 292– 7; however, there is no reference made to space. The same goes for her dissertation (see Joan Hart, Heinrich Wölfflin. An Intellectual Biography, PhD thesis: University of California, 1981).  Alexei Pevsner, ‘Interview with Colin Sanderson (p. 2),’ in: Hammer and Lodder (eds.), Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000, 68.  The original was published as Henri Bergson, Essai sur les donées immédiates de la conscience (Alcan: Paris, 1889), the translation in English as Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will. An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, trans. F. L. Pogson, Montana: Kessinger Publishing Company, 2010 (first published in 1910). For the widespread reception of Bergson in art, see John Mullarkey and Charlotte de Mille (eds.), Bergson and the Art of Immanence. Painting, Photography, Film, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013. For Bergson, see also Ruth Lorand, ‘Bergson’s Concept of Art,’ The British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 39, no. 4, 1999, 400 – 15.

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time and space, to de-entangle them. Then, through this differentiation, he defines the immediate data of consciousness as being temporal, in other words, as duration (la durée). In the duration, there is no juxtaposition of events. It is in the duration that we can speak of the experience of freedom. Such ideas led to Bergson’s concept of vital force outlined in his book Creative Evolution, first published in 1907, in which he distinguishes between a geometrical and a vital order as a result of his separation of space and time mentioned above.⁴⁴ While the former corresponds to space and intellect, the latter corresponds to time (understood as duration) and intuition. Bergson, indeed, helps us understand Gabo’s approach to space, particularly the emphasis on the dynamic aspects: Gabo thought of time and spacetime as material, as he also conceived of space. Time, Gabo wrote in 1937, needs to be brought ‘as a reality into our consciousness.’⁴⁵ The strings in Linear Construction in Space No. 1 (Fig. 3.7) bring this kind of dynamism to the fore; being wound around a clear Perspex frame, seemingly continuously, the nylon filaments do not form ‘a purely optical reflex’, the criticism Gabo advanced against the Futurists in the Realistic Manifesto of the 1920s, but present (rather than re-present) movement rhythmically. Similarly, his Model of Construction in Space: Stone with a Collar (1933 – 6), which was reproduced in Circle and consisted of a stone with an iron string (‘collar’) and plate around it, so as to form a shadow, is thought of as presenting movement (Fig. 3.2).⁴⁶ The same goes for his Kinetic Stone Carving (1936/1944, Tate Collection, London), made of Portland stone incised with sharply defined linear edges and motion lines on one side of the sculpture. Reminiscent of lines of mathematical vectors indicating direction and force, the latter are also found in long-exposure photography, appearing on a still image that captures moving objects. In an interview in 1957, Gabo noted that by ‘time I mean movement, rhythm: the actual movement as well as the illusory one which is perceived through the indication

 See Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007 (first published in 1907), 257– 8.  Gabo, ‘Sculpture. Carving and Construction in Space’, 108.  The work was listed in Circle as Naum Gabo, Construction, 1933 (Coll. Winifred Dacre, England) (no. 8 in the sculpture section). This sculpture was one of five versions of this piece, the earliest dating 1930/32 (though not being inscribed). It was presented to the Tate Collection by the artist in 1977. See Colin C. Sanderson and Christina Lodder, ‘Catalogue Raisonné of the Constructions and Sculptures of Naum Gabo,’ in: Nash and Merkert (eds.), Naum Gabo. Sixty Years of Constructivism, Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1985, 193 – 272, 218 – 9. According to Sanderson/Lodder, the Circle version has belonged to Herbert and Nannette Rotschild (then Judith Rotschild), New York since 1966/7.

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Fig. 3.2: Naum Gabo, Model of Construction in Space. Stone with a Collar, 1933, location unknown, reproduced in: Gabo et al. (eds), Circle, London 1937, fig. 8 (sculpture section)

of the flow of lines and shapes in the sculpture or in painting’.⁴⁷ The kinetic element is thus not only executed in the works, but is also understood as an ‘intuition’, a central topic of Bergson which, as Natalia Sidlina has outlined in detail, became closely associated with Gabo as well as the Parisian avant-garde,⁴⁸ and also had a profound resonance in Russia, as explored by Hilary L. Fink.⁴⁹

 See Naum Gabo, ‘Russia and Constructivism (Interview with Abram Lassaw and Illya Bolotwsky),’ in: American Abstract Artists (ed.), The World of Abstract Art, New York: Alec Tiranti, 1967, 99 – 100.  See Natalia Sidlina, Феномен Наума Габо. К проблеме взаимоотношений науки и искусства,’ Искусствознание, vol. 1, 2004, 333 – 78, an article which focuses on the kinetic element in Gabo’s work using the string sculptures as an example. As such it also makes reference to the influence of Bergson’s concept of intuition on the Parisian avant-garde and particularly Gabo.  See Hilary L. Fink, Bergson and Russian Modernism, 1900-1930, Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1999.

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Space for Bergson is not a void or a vacuum filled with space, but is a thing-initself. In this way the titles of Gabo’s works which emphasise that the sculpture is ‘in’ space, such as Linear Construction in Space, can not only be understood as a construction presenting movement, through strings and/or by hanging up –the latter illustrated particularly by the models belonging to the Linear Construction series No. 2 (such as the version produced in 1970‒1, now in the Tate Collection, London), in which the sculpture hangs like a mobile—but specifically that the sculpture is made of space.

3.1.3 Gabo’s Constructions in Light of his Spatial Concept Gabo produced numerous sculptures that he called ‘constructions’, one of which was illustrated at the end of his essay ‘Sculpture: Carving and Construction in Space’ published in Circle and discussed above as a seminal text for the artist’s spatial concept. Five further ones were reproduced on the pages preceding Gabo’s essay. This section will therefore relate his concept of space to those sculptures produced from the 1910s and reproduced in Circle, followed by a section that explores the string sculptures, works constructed around the time of the publication of Circle by three contributors to Circle, namely Gabo, Hepworth and Moore.

Works in Circle and the preference of construction The use of the same model of two wooden cubes in a number of writings (Fig. 3.1) suggests that, for Gabo, these illustrated best his understanding of carving and construction, both methods that bring to the fore the constructive idea by exploiting different material; the former uses mass and the latter space. In his works, different aspects played favoured roles over the years, though he always preferred to construct works that use space. His Head No. 2 (1916) and the Model for ‘Constructed Torso’ (1917) (both Tate Collection, London), for example, can be related to his ambition, formulated in 1920, to construct works with space rather than mass. Indeed, these heads and torsos, of which Gabo produced several versions in the 1910s, use metal, iron and plywood; they are held together by connection points and, if one used Gabo’s concept, by space understood as ‘concrete’ material. Gabo calls these constructions stereometric sculptures after stereometry, a science that is dedicated to measuring the volume of solid three-dimensional figures, dealing with geometric incidences of planes and

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lines but also of spheric forms and those of other quadrics.⁵⁰ The sculpture seems to be dissolved into geometrically irregular three-dimensional shapes, reminiscent of Analytic Cubism. However, in contrast to sculptures by Pablo Picasso (for example, his bronze Head of a Woman, 1909, Metropolitan Museum of Art), and Alexander Archipenko (for example his Woman with a Fan, 1913, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, known to Gabo’s artist brother Antoine Pevsner in Paris, where Gabo visited him in 1912 and 1913),⁵¹ the geometric three-dimensional shapes appear as open towards the outer side of the sculptures, because, according to Gabo they are consisting of space, made of space. Space here forms an incidence relation with the metal, iron or plywood like a point lies on a line, the latter forming the most basic incidence relation in geometry. In this respect, one can associate closely Gabo’s torsos and heads with his model of the cube on the right in the illustration preceding his essay in Circle, namely as presenting a ‘volume of space’ (Fig. 3.1). Compared with the string sculptures mentioned above and discussed in detail below, however, two components are missing: first, some ways of expressing rhythm (such as strings or incisions), which would highlight the relationship to time and movement; and, secondly, a use of a material that emphasises the spatial dimension of the object, as the sculptures look very heavy compared to those made of plastic and plexiglass later in his life. The stereometric sculptures do, however, already reflect an attempt to give up solid mass, as then formulated in the Realistic Manifesto of 1920. His work at that time can also be read as a beginning of foregrounding motion. Kinetic Construction (Standing Wave) (1919/20), reproduced in Circle, challenges the notion of sculpture as static, seemingly setting into practice the intention proclaimed by the Realistic Manifesto, namely to replace ‘static’ rhythms with ‘kinetic’ ones (Fig. 3.3). The sculpture, which no longer exists, comprised a thin metal rod that could be put in motion by a motor. Later, Gabo described how he had ‘constructed’ it: After a lot of experimenting, what I did was to arrange the bar in such a way that at the base of it were two separate springs which would touch the spring on which the iron bar was fixed. I arranged the springs in such a way that together they would produce a rhythmic standing wave, co-ordinating each other’s vibration.⁵²

 See Compton, ‘ Gabo: Mathematics & Science’, 24.  For the biographical information, see Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 25 and 44– 7.  Martin Hammer and Christina Lodder (eds.), Gabo on Gabo. Texts and Interviews, Forest Row: Artists Bookworks, 2000, 262.

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Fig. 3.3: Naum Gabo, Kinetic Construction (Standing Wave), c. 1920 (destroyed), with drawing, reproduced in: Gabo et al. (eds), Circle, London 1937, s.p.

In other words, when the springs vibrated in oscillating movements, this created virtual waves, illustrated by a combination of arrows, dots and lines in the drawing reproduced next to the Kinetic Construction in Circle (Fig. 3.3). Gabo did not consider this an artwork, but rather a demonstration of movement. In Circle he writes that it is ‘more an explanation of the idea of a kinetic sculpture than a kinetic sculpture itself.’⁵³ Indeed, this work would remain the artist’s only electrically-powered work, probably because of the necessity for a motor, which, for

 Gabo, ‘Sculpture. Carving and Construction in Space’, 109.

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Fig. 3.3 A: Naum Gabo, Kinetic Construction (Standing Wave), c. 1920 (destroyed), replica, 1985, Tate Collection, London

Gabo, was not considered a part of the work, but only a medium that made the object move. Regarding engine-driven kinetic sculptures, Gabo’s work is not the only example. Motorised sculptures such as Gabo’s, however, began to be produced only after Kinetic Construction (Fig. 3.3), which Gabo claims to have started in 1919 and would make his the first of this kind. Marcel Duchamp’s Rotary Glass Plates, Precision Optics (1920, the original has not survived, reconstruction model at Yale University Art Gallery), a work also not considered as art by its producer, involved a motor to spin pieces of rectangular glass on which were painted segments of a circle. When the apparatus spun, an optical illusion occur-

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red, in which the segments appeared to be closed concentric circles. Duchamp worked together with Man Ray, who set up equipment to photograph the initial experiment, but when they turned the machine on for the second time, a belt broke and caught a piece of the glass, which shattered. Thus the work had to be reconstructed. Unlike Gabo, Duchamp continued with motorised sculptures, producing Rotary Demisphere in 1923 and then the so-called Rotoreliefs. Gabo does not seem to have been in contact with Duchamp at that time; according to Hammer and Lodder, the artists only became aware of each other in the mid-1920s, so their development appears to have taken place independently of each other. Unlike Duchamp, Gabo’s emphasis in his sculptures was not on an actual movement that Gabo would call an illusion. He was interested in kineticism as a concrete material. In the sculpture section of Circle, there are works by Gabo that can be interpreted in this light. Let me exemplify it with one that was produced around the same time as his Kinetic Construction. Titled Construction (today known as Construction in Space C, whereabouts unknown) and dated in Circle 1920, this sculpture attempts to present movement by using modern material that curves and bends (Fig. 3.4).⁵⁴ Hammer and Lodder compare Construction in Space C with Tatlin’s Corner Counter-Relief (1915): ‘The thin intersecting planes, the roughness of the textures and the movement of the composition around a diagonal axis in sweeping curves have visual affinities with Tatlin’s lost Corner Counter-Relief.’⁵⁵ This sculpture, also known as Contre-Reliefs Liberes Dans L’Espace, a title that reflects the relevance of space to the work, lost in the English translation, has conventionally been considered the first kinetic sculpture (but was not among those works reproduced in Circle). It consisted of a series of suspended reliefs that needed a cornered wall to stay suspended. Although its free movement was quite restricted, it was considered to be a mobile. Indeed, it seems as if Tatlin used time as well as space as a ‘concrete’ material rather than as matters of perception. If so, it can therefore be also closely associated with Gabo’s works that do not actually move in terms of actual moving, such as the aforementioned Construction in Space C (Fig. 3.4), but also Construction en creux (second version, c. 1920 – 21,

 The work is listed as no. 5 (sculpture section) in Circle. It is further identified there as belonging to the Collection of Miss Dreyer, New York. See Sanderson and Lodder, ‘Catalogue Raisonné of the Constructions and Sculptures of Naum Gabo’, 204. The latter date the work ‘1919/21’. It was first exhibited in the Erste Russische Kunstausstellung, Berlin in 1922, from where Dreyer bought it, then in New York in 1926, Hanover in 1930 and in Gabo’s solo show at the London Gallery in London in January 1938.  Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 77.

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Fig. 3.4: Gabo, Construction in Space C, c. 1919/21, lost before 30 April 1938, reproduced in: Gabo et al. (eds), Circle, London 1937, fig. 5 (sculpture section)

lost), listed in Circle as no. 23 ‘Naum Gabo, Base Relief, 1920 (Coll. Comte de Noailles, Paris).’ Both of these works have been identified as being possibly the first ‘completely non-figurative constructions Gabo made’, a likely explanation for their inclusion in Circle. ⁵⁶ The idea, however, that the art object should

 See Sanderson and Lodder, ‘Catalogue Raisonné of the Constructions and Sculptures of Naum Gabo’, 204. The catalogue raisonné identifies it as Construction en Creux (second version, c. 1920-21), plastic and wood. Lost; presumably destroyed’.

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involve an element of movement became mainstream in Russian Constructivism, as argued by Taylor.⁵⁷ Construction en creux was the only one of Gabo’s works preceding his essay in the sculpture section that did not follow a chronological order, appearing on a page with Brâncuşi and among others that indicate this section was dedicated to early sculptures seemingly having impacted on the ‘constructive idea.’⁵⁸ Construction in Space C (Fig. 3.4), on the other hand, was illustrated opposite of Gabo’s Construction in Space. Two Cones (1927/1937, Philadelphia Museum of Art), listed in Circle as fig. 6, titled Construction and dated 1928.⁵⁹ According to Hammer and Lodder, the work may well have belonged to Miriam Franklin, the wife-to-be of Gabo, at the time of the preparation of Circle. In 1937 it was given by the artist to Albert Eugene Gallatin, owner of the Gallery of Living Art in New York, who had a specific interest in non-figurative art.⁶⁰ The illustration in Circle was the first reproduction of the work. While Construction in Space. Two Cones already uses some Perspex, a material with which Gabo began to experiment in the 1920s, its reproduction in Circle is followed by a work made predominantly of Perspex, namely a version of Torsion that is reproduced in Circle as fig. 7 (Fig. 3.5).⁶¹ Consisting of clear plastic, it  Taylor, After Constructivism, 127.  For a discussion of Gabo in view of Brâncuşi, see also Giedion-Welcker, Moderne Plastik. Giedion-Welcker also reproduced Brâncuşi’s Bird in Space, though only titled Sculpture in Circle and L’Oiseau in Giedion-Welcker’s book and with the year 1925. She set Brâncuşi’s work opposite of an illustration of Gabo’s Kinetic Scupture, which is also reproduced in Circle and compared by Giedion-Welcker with that of Brâncuşi with reference to space. According to her, both artists produce similar works, despite using different methods. While Gabo’s sculpture exploits an engine which lets a tensioned wire vibrate, Brâncuşi works with the mass of the marble, eliminating the bird’s wings and feathers, elongating the swell of the body and reducing the head and beak to a slanted oval plane. With the latter’s polished surface, both sculptures provide a virtual volume, the ‘dematerialised swinging into space’ (das entmaterialisierte Aufschwingen in den Raum), as Giedion-Welcker describes the result. The space here is meant as the given one around the sculpture. However, both sculptures, though not explicitly referred to as such in Circle, provide an excellent example to illustrate the difference between carving and construction, mass and volume.  For details, see Sanderson and Lodder, ‘Catalogue Raisonné of the Constructions and Sculptures of Naum Gabo’, 215.  See Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 492, endnote 6 who suggest that ‘Mrs Francis’, the name provided in Circle for the collection in which the work was held, may well be a misprint. For being ‘given’ to A. E. Gallatin, see Sanderson and Lodder, ‘Catalogue Raisonné of the Constructions and Sculptures of Naum Gabo’, 215.  It is listed in Circle as Naum Gabo, Construction, 1929. See Sanderson and Lodder, ‘Catalogue Raisonné of the Constructions and Sculptures of Naum Gabo’, 216 – 7. According to them, there are seven version of the Torsion. The first was conceived in 1928/9, followed by the one reproduced in Circle and identified by the Tate Collection as T02171. As this model does not have

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Fig. 3.5: Gabo, Torsion, 1928/9, reproduced in: Gabo et al. (eds), Circle, London 1937, fig. 7 (sculpture section)

emphasises the point of working with space rather than mass in form of solid heavy material. It experiments with the idea of motion by consisting of a helical form that looks like oddly shaped triangles, held together in the middle and opening up towards their ends. In this way, this series develops the stereometric idea of his Torso further. Its construction with Perspex and the presentation of

the block masking tape (anymore), Fig. 3.5 A is a reproduction of the version (c. four times the size of Fig. 3.5) dated 1936/37 with a base added in c. 1948. It was therefore constructed while editing Circle.

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Fig. 3.5 A: Gabo, Torsion, 1928 – 1936, Perspex, 352 x 410 x 500 mm, Tate Collection, London

motion (rather than representation, as time was also understood as material) are characteristics that will reoccur in his string sculptures. Torsion’s impression of weightlessness due to the material used, however, is seemingly set in contrast with the illustration on the opposite page of Circle, namely of one of the versions of Model of Construction in Space. Stone with a Collar mentioned above (Fig. 3.2). Hammer and Lodder describe it as a move towards the ideas of carving (rather than constructing) in which Gabo’s English friends, including Hepworth, were in-

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terested at the time.⁶² As an illustration of an affinity with carving, it would also exemplify Gabo’s ideas expressed in his contribution to Circle titled ‘Sculpture. Carving and Construction in Space’. According to his definition there, carving is comparable to a ‘volume of mass’, while construction corresponds to a ‘volume of space’.⁶³ The inclusion of the work in Circle may highlight his use of natural material such as stones since 1930. Reproducing it opposite of a construction using primarily Perspex and, according to Gabo, also space as material, may well be associated with Gabo’s attempt to show that even by using a stone that looks like a mass, is ‘heavy’, ‘solid’ and a found object, the result is a construction and not a carved work, because the material used is space and not mass. The artistic practice involved here is not carving, taking parts of the stone off to make space visible, but rather using solids to show space as transparent. Therefore, this work seems to underpin that a construction does not need translucent materials, such as Perspex, but can also use stone and steel, because for Gabo, both produce constructions with a focus on space understood as physical.

Stringing: Gabo, Moore and Hepworth Around the time of the publication of Circle and afterwards, Gabo, Hepworth and Moore, all three contributors to the publication, began using strings in their sculptures that seemingly look visually similar. However, Hammer and Lodder have noted the differences between those by Gabo on the one hand and those by Moore and Hepworth on the other: For them, the latter two emphasise solid forms, with threads being more widely spaced than in Gabo’s sculptures, in order to articulate spatial structure and formal contrasts.⁶⁴ As shown below, the sculptures differ not only in their stringing technique, but also as in the understanding and use of space. In the following I will draw a number of associations between the works, arguing that while for Gabo this was about the process of constructing based on using space as material, for Moore it was more about the processes of modelling and carving, and for Hepworth it was carving and construction. They all, however, can be associated with having seen string models in the Science Museum. This section will further explore how visually similar works relate to social relations.

 See Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 247. See also below.  See Gabo, ‘Sculpture. Carving and Construction in Space’, 106.  See Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 125.

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According to Hammer and Lodder, Gabo began using strings after seeing a model in Moore’s studio.⁶⁵ Moore, who used strings in his works from 1937 to 1940, noted that he took inspiration from mathematical models seen at the London Science Museum,⁶⁶ a museum also visited by Hepworth, who began using strings in 1938.⁶⁷ Moore describes the exhibits as being ‘hyperbolic paraboloids and groins and so on, developed by Lagrange in Paris, that have geometric figures at the ends with coloured threads from one to the other to show what the form between would be’. He adds that others ‘like Gabo and Barbara Hepworth have gone on doing it’.⁶⁸ Moore here refers to Fabre de Lagrange, who had experimented with hyperbolic geometry, creating hyperbolic paraboloid string models in the nineteenth century, models that were produced in order to explore new types of geometry that, as shown above with the reference to non-Euclidean geometry, were not based on Euclid.⁶⁹ Thus the use of strings for sculptures seems to be closely associated with exhibits at the Science Museum. Indeed, inspired by Moore’s biographical note, the exhibition Intersections. Henry Moore and Stringed Surfaces, held at the Royal Society and the Science Museum’s Computer and Mathematics Galleries in London in 2012 and curated by Barry Phipps, showed the artist’s work alongside mathematical models by Lagrange.⁷⁰

 Martin Hammer and Christina Lodder, ‘Hepworth and Gabo. A Constructive Dialogue,’ in: Thistlewood (ed.), Barbara Hepworth Reconsidered, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press and Tate Gallery Liverpool, 1996, 109 – 34, 115.  Henry Moore, ‘Stringed Figures,’ in: James (ed.), Henry Moore on Sculpture, London: Macdonald, 1966, 209.  Hammer and Lodder, ‘Hepworth and Gabo. A Constructive Dialogue’, 113 and 116.  Moore, ‘Stringed Figures’, 209.  The relatively understudied Fabre de Lagrange is sometimes confused with Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736 – 1813), an Italian-born mathematician and astronomer who worked in Germany and France (see, for example, Philip James, in his notes to Moore’s text ‘Stringed Figures’, 209). Joseph-Louis Lagrange has become known for his contributions to the Calculus of Variations. See therefore Radu Miron, The Geometry of Lagrange Spaces. Theory and Applications, Dordrecht; London: Kluwer Academic, 1994. The models that are relevant here are attributed to Fabre de Lagrange and were produced after Joseph-Louis’ death in 1872 (see the Inventory List, Science Museum, London).  The catalogue to the exhibition compared Moore’s work with string surfaces by Theodore Olivier (1793 – 1853), a French mathematician and pupil of Gaspard Monge (1746 – 1818), who invented Descriptive Geometry and made the first so-called surface models to illustrate his findings. See John Toland, ‘Intersections: Henry Moore and Stringed Surfaces,’ in: Intersections. Henry Moore and Stringed Surfaces, exhibition catalogue, London: The Royal Society and the Science Museum, 2012, 3. The comparison with Olivier instead of Lagrange might be due to Lagrange being relatively unknown. The relationship of Lagrange to Olivier is also not entirely clear (see Jane Wess, ‘The History of Mathematical Surface Models,’ in: Intersections: Henry

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Fig. 3.6: Fabre de Lagrange, Hyperbolic Paraboloid, string surface model, 1872, Science Museum, London

These models illustrate surfaces that can be traced out in space by the movement of a straight line. For example, Lagrange’s Hyperbolic Paraboloid string surface model (1872) should demonstrate that a line has two parallels and an infinite number of ultraparallels (lines that are not intersecting and not limiting parallels) that meet at a given point (Fig. 3.6). These lines are represented by strings. Hence, the function of the strings is to prove a specific mathematical for-

Moore and Stringed Surfaces, exhibition catalogue, London: The Royal Society and the Science Museum, 2012, 7).

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Fig. 3.7: Naum Gabo, Linear Construction in Space No. 1, 1942 – 3, Tate Collection, London

mula as opposed to the emphasis on the aesthetics by the artists whose sculptures, nevertheless, can also be interpreted in view of concepts of space. Though it is not known whether Gabo saw this particular model—or indeed whether, if he had seen it, he would have been inspired more visually than by the theory the model represents—the resemblance with Linear Construction in Space No.1 (Fig. 3.7) is striking, as the strings used in the sculpture form parallels and infinite ultraparallels that meet at a given point, although Lagrange’s threads turn, so that the beginning and end of the first string are both in the front, while in Gabo’s sculpture the beginning of the string is in the front and the end at the back of the frame. Unlike the string surface model, the quadrilateral frame of Gabo’s construction, which Hammer and Lodder trace back to a

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Fig. 3.8: Fabre de Lagrange, String Surface Model. Geometric Groin Vault, 1872, Science Museum, London

model from the Collection L’Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris,⁷¹ provides the opportunity to repeat the structure four times. The strings, which demonstrate a line’s two parallels which then form ultraparallels in Lagrange’s model, create a perception of lines as continuous and a space as open and transparent in the middle of the model in Gabo’s sculpture. Associating Moore and Lagrange visually, there are resemblances between Lagrange’s String Surface Model. Geometric Groin Vault (1872) (Fig. 3.8) and Moore’s The Bride. Despite Moore not intersecting the string, the two are related to each other in the use of the spacing of the filaments, threaded over a half-circle with two sets of strings running under each other (Fig. 3.9).  Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 389 and 391. Lodder has referred to the astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889 – 1953) who had a decisive impact on establishing the fields of extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology (see Christina Lodder, Naum Gabo’s Linear Construction in Space No. 1, unpublished lecture notes (Gabo papers), Birmingham: Barber Institute of Fine Arts, 2018).

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Fig. 3.9: Henry Moore, The Bride, 1939 – 40, The Museum of Modern Art Collection, New York

What did strings mean to Moore? For him, strings are the ‘spatial element in the sculpture’ and a way of exploring ‘spatial but transparent form’.⁷² Stringing provided him with the possibility to create a transparent structure, but also to increase the spectator’s ‘awareness of the space within the sculpture—especially when, as in The Bride [Fig. 3.9], one set of strings can be seen through another, so

 Henry Moore in: Henry Moore, Henry Moore Wood Sculpture, Sidgwick & Jackson: London, 1983, 102.

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creating a counterpoint of movement that brings to life the space around and within which the strings operate’.⁷³ Thus, while Lagrange used strings to prove a mathematical formula, Moore was inspired visually, seeing them as a way to show his concept of space, namely one that conceives of space as transparent material that can be ‘brought to life.’ Moore and Gabo do not only apply stringing that is reminiscent of the Lagrange mathematical models, their spatial concepts here are also closely aligned by an emphasis on a kinetic aspect and a conception of space as material that is made visible through strings. Such understanding of Moore here, seems, however, contradictory to quotes by him that emphasise that a sculpture is ‘dealing with the relationship of masses.’⁷⁴ Furthermore, Moore was probably less interested in space than Gabo; at least, in Circle, Moore does not mention space in his contribution. In an interview conducted at a later stage (and unrelated to Circle), Moore notes that the ‘understanding of space is merely the understanding of form […], space is only the shape that form would displace in air.’⁷⁵ He exemplifies his meaning by referring to the shapes of an apple and pear made with the form of the hand. According to Moore, these shapes would be different: ‘If you can tell what that is, then you know what space is.’ Such remarks are ambiguous as they could refer to the idea of space as Kant has mentioned it, namely as a priori that needs to be put into form; however, they could also be understood, in Gabo’s words, as space as material and concrete (as a thing-in-itself). Meanwhile, his conception of modelling in view of space is clear: ‘Modelling begins with an armature […] that is, you are given space & make forms in it.’⁷⁶ Here, Moore seems to assume of space as material and relates it to modelling. Moore’s explanation of ‘modelling’ can be closely linked with a wide-spread debate of the time, namely that about carving sculpture.⁷⁷ While Adrian Stokes and Kineton Parkes debated modelling and carving,⁷⁸ Gabo discussed the latter

 David Sylvester, cited after Herbert Read (ed.), Henry Moore. Sculpture and Drawings, London: Lund, Humphries & Co.; A. Zwemmer, 1944, 122.  Henry Moore, ‘Quotations,’ in: Gabo et al. (eds.), Circle. International Survey of Constructive Art, London: Faber and Faber, 1937, 118.  Moore in an interview, reproduced in: Henry Moore and Alan G. Wilkinson (eds.), Henry Moore. Writings and Conversations, Aldershot [England]; [Berkeley, Calif.]: Lund Humphries; University of California Press, 2002, 205.  Henry Moore, Unpublished notes, c. 1953 – 54, HMF, published in: ibid., 203.  See, for example, Judith Zilczer, ‘The Theory of Direct Carving in Modern Sculpture,’ Oxford Art Journal, vol. 4, no. 2, 1981, 44– 9.  See Richard Read, Art and Its Discontents. The Early Life of Adrian Stokes, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002, in which he deciphers Stokes’ many uses of carving and modelling. For Kineton Parkes, see his book The Art of Carved Sculpture published in 1931.

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in Circle as being different from construction, when he referred to his two cubes as outlined above (Fig. 3.1). Such a debate can be related to concepts of space and of time, as the sculptural method conceives of mass and space in various ways. Is it space which is formed by mass (solids) or mass that reveals and forms space? For Moore, modelling as well as carving are techniques with which to form space by mass/solids (not mass by space).⁷⁹ Therefore, not only the technique of carving, but also his concept of space as formulated in the quotation above can be aligned with the constructive idea. It seems that Moore wanted to make a point of this through his works contributed to Circle.

Fig. 3.10 A: Henry Moore, Sculpture, 1935, reproduced in: Gabo et al. (eds), Circle, London 1937, fig. 9 (sculpture section)

 See Richard Read, ‘Circling Each Other. Henry Moore and Adrian Stokes,’ Tate Papers, vol. 24, 2015, s.p., who argues that Herbert Read maintains that, for Stokes, Moore rather ‘modelled’ than carved.

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Fig. 3.10 B: Henry Moore, Sculpture, 1935, reproduced in: Gabo et al. (eds), Circle, London 1937, fig. 10 (sculpture section)

Indeed, Moore’s two sculptures reproduced in Circle preceding the sculpture section (as figs. 9 – 11) are both titled Carving: one of which was made of wood and the other one of marble.⁸⁰ The first one in Circle, Sculpture (1935, The Art Institute Chicago), which was described in Circle as ‘Carving (Marble) 1936’ and the only sculpture of all those preceding the sculpture section reproduced from two different angles (namely as figs. 9 and 10), can be interpreted in light of Moore’s comment, namely as a sculpture that reveals space through the mass that is formed (Fig. 3.10 A and B). Sculpture is carved so that space is shown in two ways: on the one side, by having an ovally shaped base, playing with the laws of balance and, on the other, by creating a tension on the upper part.⁸¹

 A third sculpture by Moore was reproduced at the end of the sculpture section: it was just entitled Sculpture without a date and without being mentioned in Circle’s list of illustrations.  This tension or dynamism in Moore’s work has been related to Bergson’s ideas on vital force. See Alexandr Kotlomanov, ‘Magia Bergsona,’ Novyĭ Mir Iskusstva, vol. 23, 2004, 49 – 50.

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Fig. 3.10 C: Henry Moore, Sculpture, 1935, The Art Institute Chicago

For Gabo, carving and constructing were both constructive practices revealing space, the former by taking away mass and the latter by using space.⁸² For Moore at the time, the relationship between space and mass was seemingly a question of perspective. It can be aligned with the idea of positive and negative space as foreground and background. For him, space was the foreground, while mass was in the background. Therefore, Moore was mainly concerned with form that revealed space, may this be through strings or carving. For Gabo, space was not a question of form, but of representation. How can physical space be (re‐)presented? Hence, he emphasised the process of making: to carve (taking mass away to show space) and to con-struct (producing ‘with’ space), preferring the latter, as it utilises space to represent itself. For that reason, Gabo exploited translucent nylon and Perspex (as if to double up space) or space understood as transparent and between the strings or in the opening of the Perspex (as in Fig. 3.7). Both, however, seem to understand space as concrete and the function of sculpture in making space visible, particularly at the time of Circle when Moore contributed carvings to Circle. Barbara Hepworth may also have seen Lagrange’s models, for example the String Surface Model. Staircase Vault (1872) (Fig. 3.11), which can be closely asso See Gabo, ‘The Constructive Idea in Art’, 106.

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Fig. 3.11: Fabre de Lagrange, String Surface Model. Staircase Vault, string surface model, 1872, Science Museum, London

ciated with Sculpture with Colour Deep Blue and Red (1940), a spheric form where depth is heightened by having the inside coloured in blue, with red strings spanned across as if to cover it, in the manner of a lid (Fig. 3.12).⁸³ However, in contrast to Lagrange’s model, as well as to those by Gabo, her strings here do not turn.⁸⁴ For Hepworth, stringing seems to have provided a way to make the interior of forms visible. However, there is an element of carving involved. Other sculptures by Hepworth use strings to open up room and show the finite lines meeting in one point, as in Wave (1943 – 44, National Galleries of Scot-

 This work is based on Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red (1939), the only work Hepworth took with her to Cornwall. See Chris Stephens, ‘Drawings for Sculpture with Colour,’ in: Stephens (ed.), Barbara Hepworth. Centenary, exhibition catalogue, Tate St Ives: Tate Pub., 24 May to 12 Oct. 2003, 70 – 7, 71.  Hepworth’s Helicoids Sphere of 1938 (private collection, sold by Ben Elwes Fine Art, London) seems to be an exception, because here she opens up the surface of a sphere using negative curvature. For the drawings in which the lines also turn, see ibid., 71 and particularly figs. 31– 34.

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Fig. 3.12: Barbara Hepworth, Sculpture with Colour Deep Blue and Red, 1940, Tate Collection, London

land, Edinburgh), an open oblate spheroid reminiscent of a breaking wave, which also alludes to force and thus includes a dynamic element that can be closely related to Gabo’s incisions in Kinetic Stone Carving mentioned above, which represent very well a Bergsonian idea of space that is a dynamic thingin-itself. Her series related to Orpheus, a public sculpture commissioned by the electronics firm Mullard Ltd. (created for their offices at Mullard House in London, with three smaller versions, one of which belongs to the Tate Collection) (Fig. 3.13),⁸⁵ probably comes closest to conceiving of space in the same way as Gabo. The series uses intersecting lines as shown by Lagrange in one of his models (Fig. 3.6); unlike Lagrange, however, Hepworth’s strings spread in a web, strung through notches cut on the rim of an open spheroid made of metal.  The final work was over 1.2 metres high and followed by two smaller versions, Orpheus Maquette 1 and Orpheus Maquette 2; version I, each subsequently produced as an edition of 8. A third version, Orpheus, Maquette 2; version II was produced in an edition of 3 (one of which belongs to the Tate Collection, London).

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Hence while all three artists used strings, revealed space as a constructive idea, they did so in different ways: Gabo through the process of construction that he saw as opposite to that used by Moore, namely of carving, while Hepworth exploited both, carving and construction.

Fig. 3.13: Barbara Hepworth, Orpheus (Marquette 2) (Version II), 1956, edition 1959, Tate Collection, London

3.1.4 Concluding Remarks: Strings and Networks The reproductions of Gabo’s works in Circle indicate a choice driven by the attempt to demonstrate the development of the idea of space as material: from spatial depth as stereometric, challenges to the static by the inclusion of shapes and modern material such as strings, Perspex and others that curve and bend, to the use of ‘found’ material such as stones. They were aimed to overcome a consid-

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eration of space as an issue of perception, rooted in a philosophical debate about space as a priori and a materialist approach, debates in the last third of the nineteenth century that shaped the outlook on perception and art as well as formalism at the beginning of the twentieth century. An association can be drawn to non-Euclidean geometry, which enabled such debates, as it disproved a Kantian a priori space. Such geometrical rules were drawn from geometric models rather than them being used as examples to simply illustrate them. Understood as such, one may see how Gabo conceived of sculpture, namely not merely as illustrations of his ideas, but of proof of space as material. The analysis of Gabo’s string sculptures conceived of around the time of the publication of Circle, has shown that his works and those by Hepworth and Moore were closely associated with visits to the Science Museum where they viewed models of non-Euclidean geometry. In so far, this means that visits to each other’s studio and to the museum could mean that social interactions produced close associations. However, the string sculptures in particular bring to the fore their social relations. What the string sculptures contribute to the probing of a Spatial Art History is that art works act, being testament to the social relations of the artists. Furthermore, stringing is not an idea of one person, but that of many forming a close social net.

3.2 Barbara Hepworth: Carvings and Constructions Hepworth’s concern for space became particularly eminent in the 1930s, arguably through the encounter with Naum Gabo. As already mentioned, Gabo, who lived in Britain from 1936 to 1946, and Hepworth got to know each other through Gabo’s participation in the association Abstraction—Création while Gabo lived in Paris at the beginning of the 1930s.⁸⁶ Following an invitation by Ben Nicholson and Herbert Read,⁸⁷ Gabo moved to London in 1936, soon taking up residence in Lawn Road, Hampstead, not far from the Mall Studios of Nicholson, Hepworth and Moore. Gabo and Hepworth grew so close that scholarship

 For a lengthy discussion about Gabo’s time in Paris, see Jö rn Merkert, ‘Conceptions of Sculpture. Gabo and Paris in 1937,’ in: Nash and Merkert (eds.), Naum Gabo. Sixty Years of Constructivism, Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1985, 55 – 60.  Gabo first lived in Bloomsbury, but soon moved to Lawn Road, Hampstead, not far from the Mall Studios of Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and Herbert Read (see Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 233).

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assumed that Hepworth was a witness at Gabo’s civil wedding on 20 December 1937, five months after Circle had appeared.⁸⁸ Much has been written about Hepworth; particularly relevant here is the article by Martin Hammer and Christina Lodder published as ‘Hepworth and Gabo’ in the 1996 Tate Liverpool exhibition catalogue Barbara Hepworth Reconsidered. ⁸⁹ Unlike previous scholarship, they argue that Gabo and Hepworth had a mutual relationship, underpinning this with references to the artists’ lives and works. What they do not provide, however, is a definition and comparison of their concepts of space. The same gap is noticeable in Alan G. Wilkinson’s contribution to the 1993 Hepworth retrospective, which he entitled, ‘Constructive Forms and Poetic Sculpture 1934– 1939,’ a classification suggested by Hepworth for her works in 1952:⁹⁰ Wilkinson concentrates on the artist’s carving technique and the influence of Henry Moore and John Skeaping; he interprets the ‘holes’ which Hepworth introduces from 1932, such as in Pierced Form,⁹¹ as a negative space,⁹² which, as will be shown in the following, is different from Hepworth’s understanding of space. Hence secondary literature on Hepworth has explored the texts and sculptures mentioned in the following, but not her concept of space. Therefore, this chapter will look into Hepworth’s ideas on space that became particularly eminent in the 1930s. Her writing reveals that she uses words similar

 See Registry Office Hampstead, Certified Copy of Marriage Certificate of Neemia Gabo Pevsner and Miriam Israels Franklin, Register Office, Hampstead, 20 Dec. 1937, unpublished, Tate Archives, London, Naum Gabo Collection, TGA 200734/6. The marriage certificate shows that it was Miriam G. Wornum, a close friend of the bride, an American expatriate and wife of the architect George Grey Wornum, known chiefly for his design of the RIBA Building at Portland Place in London completed in 1934, and the stockbroker Edward Lowenstein, another friend of the bride and husband of the American Jane Lowenstein, who witnessed the union.  Regarding science, there was an exhibition of Hepworth’s works in the Science Museum, London in 1978. This exhibition concentrated on Hepworth’s drawing sketchbook, further drawings (including Fenestration of the Ear, oil and pencil, Tate Collection, London) and surgical instruments (see Tate’s correspondence with the Science Museum, London, TG 4/9/470/1, The Tate Archive, London).  Alan G. Wilkinson, ‘The 1930s. Constructive Forms and Poetic Sculpture,’ in: Curtis (ed.), Barbara Hepworth. A Retrospective, exhibition catalogue, Liverpool: Tate Gallery, 1994, 31– 69. For the suggestion of the classification, see ibid., 31.  It was exhibited in 7&5 Group, Leicester Galleries, London, Feb. 1933 and also in Arthur Tooth&Sons, London, Nov. 1932, cat. 7, both as ‘Abstraction’ and reproduced in Herbert Read, A Concise History of Modern Sculpture, London: Thames and Hudson, 1964. Pierced Form is now believed to be produced in 1932. See Dr. Sophie Bowness for the Hepworth Estate, Email, 2 Sept. 2019.  Wilkinson, ‘The 1930s. Constructive Forms and Poetic Sculpture’, 37.

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to Gabo’s to describe sculpture. The sculptress’ concept of space will be explored by considering her essay in Circle and two further ones published in Unit One and Axis, periodicals that also published Hepworth’s writings and writings on her work. Furthermore, her sculptures reproduced in the publications Unit One, Axis and Circle will be discussed. Publications of text and reproduction of works not only enable insights into how artists would like their work to be viewed, but constitute an art marketing tool for their ideas and works, as they can be disseminated far beyond the studio and gallery through such periodicals. This may also be a reason why such publications included so many illustrations.

3.2.1 Hepworth’s Concept of Space: Mass and Space as Equal Materials Hepworth’s contribution to Circle begins by stating that full ‘sculptural expression is spatial—it is the three-dimensional realization of an idea, either by mass or by space construction.’⁹³ This means that she understands both mass and space as material with which to ‘construct’ her sculptures, as already noted in the previous section. Space here is understood as a material like stone, metal or plaster. Such a conception allows her to speak in the same article of ‘space displacement and space volume’⁹⁴ as part of a number of accumulations about ‘the very essence of life’, as she calls it in the same article. This latter idea is related to her notion of ‘intuition’. She writes that ‘the desire to give life is our most potent, constructive, conscious expression of this intuition’.⁹⁵ Such expression brings to mind Bergson’s aforementioned vital force, which the philosopher, in his Creative Evolution, interprets as an impetus for creativity.⁹⁶ To construct, to produce is a force that brings about something new. Although Hepworth had published before Circle in Axis and Unit One, she does not refer to space there. Unit One, planned as a book in September 1933 and published in the following year, is based on a questionnaire given to the contributors as a point of orientation for their writing.⁹⁷ Loosely addressing the questions, Hepworth discusses the essence of an abstract work that goes be-

 Hepworth, ‘Sculpture’, 113.  Ibid., 115.  Ibid., 114 and 116.  Bergson, Creative Evolution, 140.  The questionnaire is reproduced in the introduction of Herbert Read (ed.), Unit 1. The Modern Movement in English Architecture, Painting and Sculpture, London: Cassell and Company, Ltd., 1934, 14– 5. For the beginnings of Unit 1/Unit One, see Coates, Wells Coates papers (Correspondence and other papers related to Unit One).

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yond solely the avoidance of naturalism: ‘I feel that the conception itself, the quality of thought that is embodied, must be abstract—an impersonal vision individualised in the particular medium.’⁹⁸ As with most of the contributions to Unit One, her essay is accompanied by photographs of not only four of her sculptures, but also of the artist, her hands and her studio,⁹⁹ seemingly emphasising the art practice. This means that one may interpret such photographs as those of hands and the studio as an awareness of the relevance of the role of production as part of the constructive idea. However, it was not related to space. Indeed, Circle is the first publication in which Hepworth mentioned space. From then onwards, she often refers to space, it later becoming even a central concept, such as for example in her essay published in the first major book on her work that appeared together with Read as co-editor in 1952.¹⁰⁰ In this book of 1952, space is mentioned in the title of one of the chapters (‘Rhythm and Space’) and in her contribution to the book.¹⁰¹ The most telling remark is when Hepworth describes the relevance and effect of light in relation to form when writing about the period 1903 to 1930.¹⁰² For her, every form has an inside and an outside, such as a shell, which has a nut inside and a structured outside. The shadow reveals the harmony of the inside and outside, ‘and the vitality of forms is revealed by the interplay between space and volume.’¹⁰³ Space again is material, interacting with volume, being ‘scaled’ in view of mass and forms are considered as being vital. The understanding of volume and space becomes clearer in Hepworth’s chapter in the book titled ‘Artist in Society’. Here she refers to her visit of the Basilica di San Marco in Venice, whose interior was for her a ‘closed-in space volume’, an interior in which ‘a dynamic interplay between the volume of mass and volume of space’ took place.¹⁰⁴ Space here takes on the meaning of that which is between the stones, so to speak; both, mass and space form volumes as well as

 Barbara Hepworth, ‘Untitled,’ in: Read (ed.), Unit 1. The Modern Movement in English Architecture, Painting and Sculpture, London: Cassell and Company, Ltd., 1934, 19 – 20, 20.  The sculptures are described as Mother and Child, 1933, white marble; Reclining Figure, 1933, White Alabaster, Collection Alexander Reid, Esq., Mother and Child, 1933, Grey Cumberland Alabaster and Figure, 1933, Grey Camberland Alabaster.  See Barbara Hepworth, ‘Rhythm and Space’, in: Barbara Hepworth and Herbert Read (eds.), Barbara Hepworth. Carvings and Drawings, London: Lund, Humphries, 1952, s.p. See also Chapter 3.3.3.  Ibid.  See Barbara Hepworth, ‘The Excitement of Discovering the Nature of Carving’, in: Hepworth and Read (eds), Barbara Hepworth. Carvings and Drawings, s.p.  Barbara Hepworth, ‘Rhythm and Space’, in: ibid., s.p.  Ibid.

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materials which together make up the interior of the church. In other words, space is not seen as only defining the forms (and thus usually remaining unmentioned in any description of an object), but as a material equal to mass. While Hepworth herself first writes about space in Circle, a contemporary writer identified her work with space before in an essay published in Axis in 1935, two years prior to Circle’s appearance.¹⁰⁵ Axis reproduced Hepworth work in almost every issue: not only her sculptures, but also drawings in the 1936 and 1937 issues. The essay in question, titled ‘New Works by Barbara Hepworth’, is the only paper in the entire journal dedicated exclusively to Hepworth, and was authored by a so-named ‘professional archaeologist H. Frankfort.’ The initial stands either for ‘Henri’ or ‘Henriette’, Henri’s wife Henriette Antonia Groenewegen, who both were archaeologists. Henriette also published a book titled Arrest and Movement. An Essay on Space and Time in the Representational Art of the Ancient Near East in 1951, in which Groenewegen treated space and time as a significant issue of culture. In the essay in Axis, space plays a role, although understood differently from the book’s approach as well as from Hepworth: it distinguishes two qualities in sculpture, of which one is the so-called ‘spatial disposition’ and the other the ‘physical peculiarities of the materials.’¹⁰⁶ With reference to the so-called ‘Carving in White Marble (1935),’ reproduced on the opposite side of the article (and which is the same work as one of the sculptures illustrated in Circle, here reproduced as Fig. 3.14) Frankfort outlines what is meant by the former: The method of spatial disposition which Barbara Hepworth had adopted may best be understood by considering a formal characteristic common to all the carvings reproduced here. They each consist of a rectangular slab upon which two or three distinct elements are presented. One hesitates to call the slab a base, for it is by no means an accessory, but, on the contrary, an essential part of each carving; and it requires but little contemplation to discover its function.

Read together with Hepworth’s own words, this latter sentence reveals a concept of space as being relevant to the sculptural form. Her spatial disposition is understood as the way in which the sculpture is arranged, while carving is treated as if a number of forms are put together meaningfully as part of the sculpture and not only as functional parts. At the end of the essay, Frankfort refers to the sculpture Apollon of Olympia, which ‘includes as indispensable parts the

 See H. Frankfort, ‘New Works by Barbara Hepworth,’ Axis, no. 3, 1935, 14.  Ibid.

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Fig. 3.14: Barbara Hepworth, Sculpture (also titled Carving in White Marble), location unknown, reproduced in: Gabo et al. (eds), Circle, London 1937, fig. 5b (at the end of the sculpture section)

empty space between chin and shoulder, arm and flank.’¹⁰⁷ Although the author here describes space as empty, an interpretation of space that Hepworth herself would not follow, the article by Frankfort is, indeed, about the spatial concept applied to works similar to those reproduced in Circle. A year later, two essays in Axis refer to space, which reveal how the wording around space and sculpture is similar at the time. One, entitled ‘Order, Order!’ and written by Myfanwy Evans, editor of Axis from 1935 to 1937, explains various aspects of the relationship between abstract and surrealist art.¹⁰⁸ In terms of space, she does not refer to Hepworth but identifies Naum Gabo as someone ‘who wants to build with space and to create a new art out of the finds of industry.’¹⁰⁹ The other one that mentions space is a review of Henry Moore’s exhibition

 Ibid.  See Myfanwy Evans, ‘Order, Order!’, Axis, no. 6, 1936, 4– 8.  See ibid., 5. He also mentions Moholy-Nagy who wants to ‘build with light.’

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at the Leicester Galleries (31 Oct. to 21 Nov. 1936). Authored by S. John Woods, the article identifies the so-called ‘space-constructions’ with Moholy-Nagy, Naum Gabo, ‘and others.’¹¹⁰ Woods criticises such works as a ‘masquerade’, because he conceives of ‘sculpture’ as something ‘natural, primitive, phallic-tactile’— but instead that has been made into ‘space-construction which is unnatural, sophisticated and scientific’ by having ‘space values’ supersede ‘mass values.’ In view of the relevance of space at the time, it is intriguing that John Piper, publishing in Axis an essay on photographs of pre-historical sites in 1937, introduced his text by referring to flying as having ‘changed our sense of spaces and forms and vistas enormously.’¹¹¹ Indeed, Circle, which had appeared just shortly before this Axis issue, also published a number of aerial photographs, allowing to picture the world in a new way that became more popular through technological development advanced particularly during WWI and then used for survey and mapping purposes. However, Piper does not refer to Circle, constructive space or Hepworth, neither do Evans or Woods, the two writers mentioned above. The referral to space by the two latter, nevertheless, can be closely associated with the sculptress’ contribution to Circle, in which Hepworth even used the term ‘space construction,’ as outlined above. Woods’ distinction between ‘space values’ and ‘mass values’, made in his review of Moore, would not be shared by Hepworth, who conceives of both as equal materials. It is Gabo who prefers space over mass, however. The aspect of vital force highlighted by Hepworth is not considered in any of the essays, despite her not only referring to it but also ending her contribution to Circle with a photograph of Stonehenge in order to emphasise the emotional aspect that she felt important to introduce in her sculpture. All reviews, however, bring to the fore that constructive and abstract art were styles identified particularly with ‘space’ in the 1930s.

3.2.2 Relating Hepworth’s Concepts of Space Hepworth describes her interest in questions about space as being initiated by Ben Nicholson’s paintings which she remembers having seen in 1930 for the first time:¹¹² ‘the impact of Ben Nicholson’s work had a deep effect on me, open-

 For here and in the following, see S. John Woods, ‘Henry Moore,’ Axis, vol. 7, Autumn 1936, 28 – 30.  See John Piper, ‘Prehistory from the air’, Axis, no. 8, early winter 1937, 4– 8.  Barbara Hepworth and Herbert Read (eds.), Barbara Hepworth. Carvings and Drawings, section 2, n.p.

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ing up a new and imaginative approach to the object in landscape, or group in space.’¹¹³ Further to such initial thoughts, Hepworth’s language used in her writings is reminiscent of those words exploited by Gabo. As outlined above, Gabo distinguishes between open and enclosed forms of space parallel to the technique of construction and of carving.¹¹⁴ Gabo describes with such concepts the difference between using space as material and ‘holes’, a term which assumes that the sculptor had taken away ‘mass’, creating a ‘hole’ (understood as emptiness) in the mass. Gabo and Hepworth interpret space as material, as an ‘absolute sculptural element’. Unlike Hepworth who attaches the same value to mass and space, however, Gabo assumes that a construction with space as material changes the essential idea that a sculpture is solid. This means that the emphasis is on the space rather than the mass. Nevertheless, the language used by both shows a close association between the spatial ideas of Hepworth and Gabo. Indeed, for Gabo, both mass, associated with carving, and space, aligned with construction, are sculptural methods that make space visible and therefore form part of the constructive idea. Apart from Nicholson and Gabo, Hepworth’s sculptural concept can be aligned also to Adrian Stokes’ ideas on carving. Stephen Kite and Richard Read refer to Hildebrand’s idea of effective form as an influence on Stokes.¹¹⁵ Kite, following Read, proves the centrality of the topic of space for Stokes.¹¹⁶ Indeed, remarks such as ‘mass […] reveals space’, made by Stokes in The Quattro Cento and also cited above, ¹¹⁷ show a similarity in the language used by Stokes and Hepworth. Considering mass in such a way is very much in the tradition that Stokes adopted from Roger Fry, particularly from his book Arts of Painting and Sculpture, published in 1932.¹¹⁸ It conceives of space as something made visible through mass. In other writings, Stokes refers to mass and space as equals. In the latter respect, he can be closely associated with Hepworth who gives the same value to both; therefore, she can be seen as close to Stokes and more distant to Gabo, who values space over mass. Such an understanding of space may ex-

 Ibid.  Gabo, ‘Sculpture. Carving and Construction in Space’, 106 – 107.  See Stephen Kite, Adrian Stokes. An Architectonic Eye. Critical Writings on Art and Architecture, London: Legenda, Modern Humanities Research Association: Maney Publishing, 2009, 169 – 173 and Read, Art and Its Discontents. The Early Life of Adrian Stokes, 139 – 40.  Kite, Adrian Stokes. An Architectonic Eye. Critical Writings on Art and Architecture, 131 and Read, Art and Its Discontents. The Early Life of Adrian Stokes, 140.  Stokes, The Critical Writings of Adrian Stokes, vol. 1, 135.  Read, Art and Its Discontents. The Early Life of Adrian Stokes, 67– 8.

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plain why Hepworth does not use translucent materials including nylon and Perspex, but rather cotton yarn and iron in her string sculptures analysed above. Hepworth’s understanding of creating and the aforementioned emphasis on emotion are reminiscient of Henri Bergson’s vital force, which the philosopher in his Creative Evolution published in 1907, interprets as an impetus for creativity.¹¹⁹ He distinguishes between a geometrical and a vital order as a result of his separation of space and time.¹²⁰ While the former corresponds to space and intellect, the latter corresponds to time and intuition. Indeed, ‘vital force’ and ‘intuition’ are terms frequently featured in Hepworth’s article in Circle; for her, forms need to have a vital force.¹²¹

3.2.3 Hepworth’s Works in Light of her Concept of Space: Piercing as Carving Five of Hepworth’s works are illustrated in Circle; four of these are placed before the sculptures of Gabo, Moore, Pevsner, Holding, Giacometti, Calder, Tatlin, Medunetsky and Brâncuşi, although her article comes second after that by Gabo. The fifth is the work that was also reproduced in Axis in 1935 discussed above; in Circle, it forms part of a section of works by Gabo, Moore, Pevsner and Nicholson illustrated together with drawings and other works after the essays of the sculpture section. Hepworth does not refer to any of her illustrations directly. Nevertheless, they can be used to apply Hepworth’s concept of space; particularly the second illustration, her sculpture titled in Circle ‘Hepworth 1936’, known as Monumental Stele (Fig. 3.15), illustrates well what is meant with mass and space construction: namely, the stone represents the ‘mass’, while, what is conventionally called ‘hole’, is produced with the material of ‘space.’ This sculpture can be interpreted by using the vocabulary with which scholarship, such as that of Abraham Marie Hammacher, has analysed another sculpture which has, however, not been reproduced in Circle, namely Hepworth’s Pierced Form (Fig. 3.16).¹²² Hepworth herself discussed Pierced Form as one of only two sculptures mentioned in her notes on the years 1931– 1934.¹²³ At the time of its production, she called it ‘pierced’, because she emphasised mass over space. In 1952, she ob    

Bergson, Creative Evolution, 140. Ibid., 257– 258. See also Lorand, ‘Bergson’s Concept of Art’. Hepworth, ‘Sculpture’, 114 and 116. See Hammacher, Barbara Hepworth, 42– 3. For the date of the sculpture, see above. Wilkinson, ‘The 1930s. Constructive Forms and Poetic Sculpture’, 37.

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Fig. 3.15: Barbara Hepworth, Monumental Stele (in Circle ‘Hepworth 1936), destroyed in the war, reproduced in: Gabo et al. (eds), Circle, London 1937, fig. 2 (sculpture section)

serves about this work that ‘I had felt the most intense pleasure in piercing the stone in order to make an abstract form and space.’¹²⁴ Intriguingly, she refers here to ‘form’ and ‘space’ as two equivalents. Wilkinson argues that Hepworth, as well as Moore, had made, what Wilkinson calls ‘holes’, before 1932; they ‘had carved through the stone, but these opened out areas simply define the “naturalistic” space between the arms and the body.’¹²⁵ Wilkinson conceives of such spaces as empty. The difference in Pierced Form is that the so-called piercing in the latter is part of an abstract piece and as such an integral part of the sculpture. Unlike Quero-Sanchez’s interpretation, it is neither ‘nothing’, nor no-thing.¹²⁶ It, indeed, makes space visible; in Hepworth’s eyes, it uses space as material and therefore can be considered constructive. Likewise, one might call the form conventionally seen as a ‘hole’ in the illustration of Monumental Stele in Circle rather pierced (Fig. 3.15). Made of blue Lancaster stone, the pierced form is a circle, while the rest of the sculpture consists of squares, a half-circle and rectangles that provide a series of different depths.

 Hepworth, in: Hepworth and Read (eds.), Barbara Hepworth. Carvings and Drawings, section 2, n.p.  Wilkinson, ‘The 1930s. Constructive Forms and Poetic Sculpture’, 37.  See Andrés Quero-Sánchez, ‘Non-Situated Being. On the Reality of Nothing,’ in: Vinzent and Wojtulewicz (eds.), Performing Bodies. Time and Space in Meister Eckhart and Taery Kim, Leuven: Peeters, 2018, 143 – 66, 165.

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Fig. 3.16: Barbara Hepworth, Pierced Form, 1932, pink alabaster, destroyed in the war

For Gabo, piercing would represent the technique of carving, which is also considered constructive, but the sculpture would not be of construction and therefore show space as enclosed rather than open. Indeed, the piece of stone was taken out of the sculpture (‘pierced’), so shows space as enclosed, whereas her other sculptures reproduced in Circle are constructions made with plaster and wood; they are the products of assemblage and therefore represent Gabo’s space as open, such as Carving in White Marble (Fig. 3.14). Hence, Hepworth’s concept of space can be closely related to that of Gabo, but is also distinct. As already mentioned above in the analysis of the string sculptures, Hepworth used space as material, but values space and mass equally, producing constructions (such as Fig. 3.14) and carvings (including Fig. 3.15) in Circle. She also ex-

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ploited natural materials such as wood and stone rather than those synthetically produced including nylon and Perspex, as Gabo does.

3.2.4 Of Piercings and Openings: Space as Constructive rather than Negative Hepworth’s concept of space is not negative space as argued by Wilkinson. One of the most prominent artist working with the notion of negative space is Rachel Whiteread: her work titled Six Spaces (1994, Arts Council Collection) is made of resin which filled the spaces underneath six chairs and thus represents the space usually left out with resin. Although the resin makes the space visible, Whiteread does not conceive of space as material; if so, she would not need to use resin for the space underneath the chair but rather have left it ‘empty.’ Hepworth’s space is rather thought of as constructive, using carvings and constructions that, according to Gabo, represent space as enclosed and as open (Fig. 3.1). However, space is in both techniques considered as material, which reveals space, makes space visible. For Hepworth, this is achieved through space (rather than mass as in the case of Whiteread), and both processes, carving and constructing. Piercings and Openings are therefore constructive rather than negative. Hepworth also believes in a social function of art; as she expresses it in Circle, art ‘can give life.’¹²⁷ Indeed, the constructive concept of space forms a bridge to understanding why these artists were concerned with the association between art and life. Space is thought of as material—not as simply absence, or nothing— and as therefore capable of having an impact on life. Hepworth herself ends her contribution to Circle that ‘the desire to give life is our most potent, constructive, conscious expression of this intuition’.¹²⁸ Indeed, it seems as if the essence of ‘constructive’ art was the belief that art can change or, as Hepworth expresses it, ‘give’ life. It remains open as to whether this only means that art is brought to life or whether art can change society. Hepworth’s writing indicates that she seems to have believed in more than the former, but did not really express it more clearly. Therefore, such an understanding is seemingly rather more utopian, as discussed further in Chapter Four.

 Hepworth, ‘Sculpture’, 114 and 116.  Ibid.

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3.3 Herbert Read: Space in the Aesthetic Perception and Conception of Art Works Read’s contribution to Circle appeared in the painting section together with the essays by Mondrian, Winifred Nicholson, Le Corbusier and Ben Nicholson. It was considered central to the book by the editors as mentioned in Chapter Two (2.3). The editors had further suggested him as negotiator between Circle’s editorial board and the publishing-house Faber and Faber, as he had already published nine books with them.¹²⁹ Around the time of the planning and publication of Circle, Read was editor of The Burlington Magazine (from 1933 to 1938). Indeed, Read was the most well-established English art critic at the time when Circle appeared. Furthermore, as already mentioned in Chapter Two (2.2), Read was suggested a permanent contributor to Circle. He was the one to coin the nickname ‘nest of gentle artists’ for the close relationship particularly between Gabo, Hepworth and Nicholson in 1962. Unlike them, however, he also supported Surrealism, for example, as co-curator of the International Surrealist Exhibition in 1936, co-translator of the accompanying catalogue (together with David Gascoyne) and lecturer and speaker as part of the accompanying programme of the exhibition. While supporting Surrealism, Read, however, criticised the Surrealists’ neglect to consider the constructive power of space in his book Icon and Idea published in 1955.¹³⁰ Therefore, Read’s concept of space seems to be the art critic’s point of departure from Surrealism, a topic that has been neglected in literature so far, despite him having already attracted considerable scholarship. Secondary literature until 1998, the year of Read’s thirteeth anniversary of death, has been critically analysed by David Goodway who also provided a chronological bibliography of Read’s numerous published works.¹³¹ Book-long publications on Read before 1998 comprise Henry Treece’s edited book of 1944, a booklet by Francis Berry (1953, 2nd edition 1961), an edited book by Robin Skelton (1970), a book by George Woodcock (1972), a catalogue to an exhibition on

 See Editor, ‘A Chronological Bibliography,’ in: Goodway (ed.), Herbert Read Reassessed, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1998, 309 – 16.  See Herbert Read, Icon and Idea. The Function of Art in the Development of Human Consciousness, London: Faber & Faber, 1955, 128 and Paul C. Ray, ‘Sir Herbert Read and English Surrealism’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 24.3, Spring 1966, 401– 413 Paul C. Ray, ‘Sir Herbert Read and English Surrealism,’ The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 24.3, Spring 1966, 401– 13.  See David Goodway, ‘Introduction’, in: David Goodway (ed.), Herbert Read Reassessed, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1998, 1– 12, 5 – 6.

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Read (1975), David Thistlewood’s highly praised exploration of Read’s aesthetics (1984) and James King’s biography of Read (1990).¹³² While most of this scholarship takes a biographical approach, Goodway’s essay collection also stands at the beginning of a number of monographs and edited books on Read published over the next two decades, which dealt with Read in a more analytical way. These include a collection of essays edited by Michael Paraskos (2007).¹³³ Apart from the book-long publications, there are numerous articles on various aspects of Read’s writings. Compared to other twentieth-century British critics, such as Adrian Stokes, Read is the one who has received the most attention so far. Issues discussed in the secondary literature to Read include his poetry, art and literary criticism, art pedagogy and political views, particularly his anarchism which led Read to support the opponents of the Franco regime and the refugees from National Socialism. As outlined in the Introduction of this book, Read defined anarchism as the ‘devolutionary types of communism’, as opposed to Marxism which, for Read, designated ‘the centralized totalitarian conception of communism.’¹³⁴ Literature has also emphasised his influence as promoter of Paul Nash, Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, as well as a number of other artists contemporary to Read. Space as a concept in his writing has sparingly played a role so far. One of the most relevant sources in this respect is Megan Luke’s essay on Schwitters and Read (2012), in which she dedicates a paragraph to Read’s aesthetics arguing that the latter concentrated on what he called ‘occupying space’ which the art critic ‘frequently termed ‘ponderability’ and that such space made him prefer Moore’s sculpture over others.¹³⁵ Luke also shows that Read’s idea of perception had a connection with Hildebrand’s understanding of ‘spatial continuum’ as outline below.¹³⁶

 See Henry Treece (ed.), Herbert Read. An Introduction to his Work, London: Faber & Faber, 1944; Francis Berry, Herbert Read, London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1961 (second edition; first published in 1953); Robin Skelton (ed.), Herbert Read. A Memorial Symposium, London: Methuen, 1970; George Woodcock, Herbert Read. The Stream and the Source, London: Faber & Faber, 1972; City of Bradford Art Galleries and Museums (ed.), A Tribute to Herbert Read, 1893-1968, exhibition catalogue, Bradford: Cartwright Memorial Hall, 25 May to 22 June 1975; Thistlewood, Herbert Read. Formlessness and Form (already cited above) and James King, The Last Modern. A Life of Herbert Read, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1990.  See Michael Paraskos (ed.), Rereading Read. New Views on Herbert Read, London: Freedom Press, 2007.  See Read, Poetry and Anarchism, 23.  See Megan R. Luke, ‘Sculpture for the Hand. Herbert Read in the Studio of Kurt Schwitters,’ Art History, vol. 35, no. 2, 2012, 234– 51, 241.  See ibid.

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A major resource for Read’s aesthetics, however, was Worringer, as already noted by David Thistlewood in 1984. Indeed, Thistlewood himself, who has frequently been cited as a ground-breaking source by literature published on Read, has provided a most insightful analysis of Read’s aesthetic views. He compared these to those of Gabo, Hepworth and Moore.¹³⁷ Although space does not play a dominant role in Thistlewood’s book, the topic as such does feature, as space is considered a concept by Read. Concepts, and their relation to art and form, play the central focus in distinguishing aesthetic views, which Thistlewood brilliantly dissects in his book mentioned above and his article on Read’s aesthetic theory published in 1979.¹³⁸ For Thistlewood, Read’s contribution to Circle was the first in which Read ‘pressed the claims of superrealism’ as an equal opposite of abstraction.¹³⁹ This is only possible because of perceiving of abstract art not as a ‘pure manifestation of the intellect’, but as a product which requires of the artist, an identification ‘beyond the concept’: ‘As the superrealist could be said to believe that parallel to conscious reasoning, and below the conscious level of the mind, there was latent imagery which he was properly seeking to disengage for intellectual contemplation, the abstractionist could be said to be realizing latent imagery from just outside the range of consciousness, by a process of enlarging given concepts.’¹⁴⁰ While such a description brings to the fore that Thistlewood explains Read’s understanding of art spatially (namely through the words ‘outside’ and ‘below’), he also mentions space as an example for such a concept which lies outside consciousness: Citing Read, Thistlewood notes the following: ‘Space’, for example, he [i. e. Read] wrote, was a typical concept—one which a superralist might in effect affirm by the negative contrasts of his ‘dream perspectives’, and which an abstractionist might attempt to affirm devoid of emotional encumbrances, in the most unequivocal manner. Both would be concerned, in their opposing ways, with augmenting the concept, on the one hand with subconscious, and on the other with supra-conscious, associations. It was, Read said (in his essay ostensibly supporting the constructivists) a joint responsibility to exceed what had previously been conventionalized.¹⁴¹

 See, for example, Fiona Russell, ‘John Ruskin, Herbert Read and the Englishness of British Modernism,’ in: Holt et al. (eds.), The Geographies of Englishness. Landscape and the National Past 1880-1940, New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2002, 303 – 21, 304.  For here and the following, see Thistlewood, Herbert Read. Formlessness and Form. The article referred to in the main text is David Thistlewood, ‘Herbert Read’s Aesthetic Theorizing 19141952. An Interpretation of the Philosophy of Modern Art,’ Art History, vol. 3, Sept. 1979, 339 – 54, 339 – 354.  Thistlewood, Herbert Read. Formlessness and Form, 83. See also above.  Ibid. The italics correspond with the original.  Ibid.

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Therefore, space seemingly played a significant role in the many concepts one could assume here (e. g. mass and volume would be other concepts relevant at the time), even if not explicitly acknowledged by Thistlewood. Furthermore, while Thistlewood explains luminously Read’s understanding of abstract and surrealist art, he does not consider any difference between perception and production, which, as will be argued in the following, Read seemingly relies on in terms of his concept of space without acknowledging this explicitly himself. In his explanation of Read, Thistlewood speaks of the ‘superrealist’ and ‘abstractionist’, which could apply to both, those who create the art work and those who view it. However, the assumption that the images represent dreams and devoid ‘emotions’, seems more likely to have the perception rather than the production of art works in mind.¹⁴² Although Thistlewood does not mention Gabo when referring to space, he acknowledges that Read, at the beginning of the 1940s, was ‘drawn towards an understanding of the constructivism of Naum Gabo […] he seems gradually to have realized that recognition of its appeal would not be inconsistent with his other preferences.’¹⁴³ Thus while this section has benefited from Thistlewood’s analysis of Read, it has not explored the concept of space in depth. In addition to Thistlewood, James King’s biography on Read is relevant here, as King cites some poems which mention space. Although he does not discuss them in depth, these proved useful for the following, as the poems reflect Read’s concepts of space pointedly. In accordance with the spatial methodology suggested in the introduction of this book, the following will first explore how Read conceived of space in his contribution to Circle and then trace how space was considered in his other writings. Taking the idea of space as outlined in publications as a thing which can be exchanged, it will then explore how and what kind of social network it created. Such an approach reassesses British art by foregrounding the ideas, art works and books which led to relationships rather than starting with the relationships that led to art. Surely, both are correlative to each other, but a spatial method takes the thing not as an object, but foregrounds it and makes it into a ‘subject’ which acts. In other words, it will not only be considered how ideas formulated in publications relate to each other; it will also ask whether and how ideas and books create a social net. Furthermore, in view of a Spatial Art History, influences can be read as associations with the past. Instead of assuming the copying of

 See ibid.  Ibid., 85.

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ideas of others, however, the methodology not only accepts but emphasises their modification and transformation, because each association is new. Although this chapter has considered the spatial aesthetics of artists, it seems vital to explore Read’s view on space. He not only mentioned space in his contribution to Circle, but, as argued below, played the role of disseminating the artists’ works. Therefore the question is how far Gabo’s concept was also shaped by Read’s pen. Based on Read’s publications, this section will therefore not only explore Read’s spatial concept in Circle, relate it to the other publications in Circle and contextualise it within Read’s aesthetic thoughts, but will also explore as to when and how Read contributed to the dissemination of the artists’ theories and works regarding space.

3.3.1 Read’s Space in Circle Herbert Read’s essay in Circle was titled ‘The Faculty of Abstraction’. He argues that abstract art with a reliance on formal elements can ‘create and affirm’ a concept or an idea.¹⁴⁴ Although he cites Kant and Hegel as philosophical traditions and believes fundamentally in the incompatibility between art and intellect, he proposes a synthesis according to which the work of art ‘translates the concept back again into perceptual form, but retaining the unity of the original concept’.¹⁴⁵ For him, an example of such a concept is space. He argues that the ‘purer and more fundamental the elements which are used, the acuter and purer is our emotional awareness of “space’”.¹⁴⁶ In other words, the awareness of space, which is emotionally rather than intellectually perceived, is a result of the elements used in an art work. These elements illustrate how much Read’s idea of space is grounded in finding the ‘right’ form that is qualified by being ‘acuter’ and ‘purer.’ The form therefore seems to be essential to an art work and its perception. For Read, an artwork is perceived and formed in the mind before it is articulated in an art object (an understanding that will become even clearer further down, when Read’s views on Moore will be discussed). This articulation is expressed with elements that encompass space. The ‘acuter’ and ‘purer’ the forming, the clearer the spectator’s perception of this concept. Here space is understood as an element used to produce an art work and as something of which the spectator can become emotionally aware.

 Read, ‘The Faculty of Abstraction’, 65.  Ibid.  Ibid. The italics correspond with the original.

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Space in view of production is also brought forward in Read’s poem The Nuncio, which was largely inspired by the new architecture of the Bauhaus, as put forward by King: Our structures are of steel and glass Their subtle structs not obvious We build with space in space And by ingenuity produce Our aerial houses high towers Our winding stairs – All is in light Above-board and ought To win the approval of the masses.¹⁴⁷

Space is here understood as both a material with which one can produce architecture and as the environment into which architecture is built. In both cases, space seems to be existent and not an a priori category. However, the emphasis here lies on the production rather than the perception of an art work. Therefore, in view of space, Read’s concept seems to differentiate between production and perception of an art work.

3.3.2 The Role of Space in Read’s Art Theory In Read’s other writing, space takes on a number of meanings, although it has not been considered a dominant subject in secondary literature so far. Indeed, if compared to other topics such as anarchism, space plays a less relevant role and only insofar as it specifies his theories on aesthetics. Apart from the undated poem cited above, space began to play a role in his aesthetic understanding from 1937, the essay in Circle being the first indication of this. For example, in Art and Industry (1934), a book also listed in the Appendix of Circle, Read considers form and material, but not space.¹⁴⁸ The first time space plays a significant role in one of his books is in The Art of Sculpture, Read’s published Mellon Lectures in Fine Arts delivered at the National Gallery of Art in Washington in 1954, in which the author dedicated one of six chapters to ‘The Discovery of Space.’¹⁴⁹ This, howev-

 Herbert Read, quoted after King, The Last Modern. A Life of Herbert Read, 140 – 41. Unfortunately, King neither provides a date for the poem nor a reference for the citation.  See Herbert Read, Art and Industry. The Principles of Industrial Design, New York: Harcourt: Brace and Company, 1935 (first published in London: Faber and Faber, 1934).  See Herbert Read, The Art of Sculpture, New York: Pantheon Books, 1956, 46 – 68.

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er, does not mean that his ensuing books on aesthetics show the same interest in space. Instead, this interest varied in the 1950s and was lost in his publications in the 1960s. If space is concerned, it usually is related to the aesthetic experience and the creative process. Apart from space, he was further interested in the relationship of art and society in the 1930s and education.¹⁵⁰ Aesthetic experience, art and the creative process, explored in books such as The Grass Roots of Art (1947), The Philosophy of Modern Art (1952), Icon and Idea (1955), The Forms of Things Unknown. Essays Towards an Aesthetic Philosophy (1960) and The Origins of Form in Art (1965), remained a life-long interest. Based on Read’s publication and secondary literature, particularly the essay by Luke, who is one of those few considering Read’s concept of space, the following will explore Read’s understanding of space and its historical development in his aesthetics, of which the essay in Circle stood at the beginning.

The Perception of Art Works: Occupying space, volume and mass As mentioned above, central to explore Read’s concept of space is his book The Art of Sculpture. He begins his chapter ‘The Discovery of Space’ with the sentence that the ‘peculiarity of sculpture as an art is that it creates a three-dimensional object in space.’¹⁵¹ Space here is understood as the environment, as the universe (in Gabo’s definition), in which a sculpture is situated, occupying space. This is not yet ‘peculiar.’ The peculiarity for Read is that space itself is ‘a perceived quantity’ a ‘necessity’ for the sculptor, while for the painter, who deals with the ‘illusion of space’, space is a ‘luxury.’¹⁵² The peculiarity lies therefore in the understanding of the object that only becomes an ‘object of us by being differentiated from other objects and by delimited from the space surrounding it’ and of space that exists. Space can be perceived through sensation: ‘We have a sensation of the amount of space occupied by the object, which is the quality

 For Read’s interest in art and society, see, for example, Read, Art and Industry. The Principles of Industrial Design; Art and Society, first published in 1937; contributions to Spain and the World in 1938 and Poetry and Anarchism, first published in 1938. For the art critic’s ideas about education, see, for example, his books Education through Art, 1943; The Education of Free Man, 1944; The Grass Roots of Art, 1947; Culture and Education in a World Order, 1948 and Redemption of the Robot, 1966.  Read, The Art of Sculpture, 46. Italics correspond with the original.  Ibid.

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of volume, or bulk. If we refer to the quantity of matter the object contains, we speak of its mass.’¹⁵³ Read explains that space perception is something that needs to be learnt, an aspect neglected by Read in his contribution to Circle. ¹⁵⁴ Moreover, space is distinct by being able to be perceived through sight and through touch.¹⁵⁵ While the former relates more to paintings, the latter is the way in which sculptures are perceived. Therefore, he calls sculpture ‘an art of palpation—an art that gives satisfaction in the touching and handling of objects.’¹⁵⁶ Sculpture understood as such, however, does not always create a spatial ‘plastic feeling’ in the viewer.¹⁵⁷ Egyptian sculpture, for Read, was ‘essentially linear, essentially graphic’ without displaying depth.¹⁵⁸ He adopts here Alois Riegl’s notion of Raumscheu, which Read translates as ‘space shyness’, and argues that the Egyptians were not aware of what Worringer has called ‘metaphysical consciousness’ of space. Read notes that Egyptians ‘were like children who have not yet discovered that space exists, except as a relationship between groups of objects.’¹⁵⁹ Here Read describes space from the perspective of perception, distinguishing space as a practical necessity ‘to which we can react on a merely sensational level’ (such as to the Egyptian sculpture) from space as ‘a concept, to which we react emotionally and spiritually.’¹⁶⁰ While the former seems to mean a sensuous recognition, the latter space is also the one which features in Read’s contribution in Circle. The perception of space in this sense (to which the viewer reacts emotionally and spiritually), which Read calls ‘plastic sensibility’ in ‘The Realization of Mass’, the chapter following ‘The Discovery of Space’, involves not only the haptic, but also ‘a synthetic realization of the mass and ponderability of the object.’¹⁶¹ This is necessary, particularly in view of objects that are too large to be touched. For Read, the space of such sculpture, is marked by ponderability that goes beyond those works having only ‘a surface play of light and shade that has no relevance to the mass beneath, which would limit our appreciation of sculpture

        

Ibid. Italics correspond with the original. Ibid., 47. See ibid., 48. Ibid., 49. The italics correspond with the original. See ibid., 54. See ibid., 53 – 4. See ibid., 54. See ibid. Ibid., 71.

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merely to its ability to cohere as a visual image’ (such as the Egyptian sculpture).¹⁶² Luke understands ponderability as a ‘trait immanent in the object. It is, as it were, encased within the core of the work rather than engendered by our embodied perception, despite its appeal to our sense of touch.’¹⁶³ Indeed, Read situates ponderability into the object rather than into the spectator, circumscribing ponderablity also as that which creates a ‘certain emotional reaction in the spectator.’¹⁶⁴ Therefore, ponderability seems close to that which Gabo has described as ‘inner force’ of a sculpture, mentioned above. Read’s sensory demand that the haptic is necessary in the perception of an object has also been brought forward by others, such as, for example, the teachers at the Bauhaus.¹⁶⁵ Differentiating perception by ‘sight-space’ and ‘touchspace’, so Read,¹⁶⁶ has been informed by Riegl’s theory brought forward in his 1901 publication Die Spätrömische Kunstindustrie (Late Roman Art Industry), as explored by T’ai Smith (although not in view of Read).¹⁶⁷ For Riegl, the move to-

 Luke, ‘Sculpture for the Hand. Herbert Read in the Studio of Kurt Schwitters’, 240. Luke refers here to Read’s The Art of Sculpure. Although I could not retrace the quotation as such, Luke follows Read’s thought.  Ibid., 240 – 1.  See Read, The Art of Sculpture, 85.  Bauhauslers interested in tactility include Moholy-Nagy’s interest in sensory training; Josef Albers, Itten and Kandinsky who all used tactile charts in their teaching in the 1920s; and Otti Berger in the weaving workshop. For Moholy-Nagy, see Rainer Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz, 2000, 131– 163; Oliver Botar, Sensing the Future. Moholy-Nagy, Media and the Arts, Zurich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2014, 17– 38; and D’Alessandro, ‘Through the Eye and the Hand. Constructing Space, Constructing Vision in the Work of Moholy-Nagy, in: Matthew Witkovsky, Carol Eliel and Karole Vail (eds.), Moholy-Nagy. Future Present, Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2016, 61– 68. For the Bauhaus teachers, see Leah Dickerman, ‘Bauhaus Fundaments’, in: Barry Bergdoll and Leah Dickerman (eds.), Bauhaus 1919 – 1933. Workshops for Modernity, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2009, 14– 39, 32– 33. For Otti Berger, see T’ai Smith, ‘Limits of the Tactile and the Optical. Bauhaus Fabric in the Frame of Photography’, Grey Room, no. 25, 2006, 6 – 31. For these references, I am indebted to Imogen Wiltshire, Therapeutic Art Concepts and Practices in Britain and the United States (1937-1946), PhD thesis, University of Birmingham: 2017, 71– 72, a thesis which I supervised. Touch was also important to Surrealists, as argued by Janine A Mileaf, Please Touch. Dada and Surrealist Objects After the Readymade, Hanover: Dartmouth College Press, 2010.  See Read, The Art of Sculpture, 48.  See Alois Riegl, Die spätrömische Kunst-Industrie nach den Funden in Österreich-Ungarn. (translated as Alois Riegl, Late Roman Art Industry, trans. Rolf Winkes, Rome: Giorgio Bretschneider Editore, 1985), Vienna: Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut, 1901 and T’ai Smith, ‘Limits of the Tactile and the Optical. Bauhaus Fabric in the Frame of Photography’, Grey Room, no. 25, 2006, 6 – 31. As Margaret Olin has demonstrated, Riegl’s privileging the optical

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wards modernity in art correlated with a shifting mode of perception from the tactile (also called haptic) characterised by near-sightedness (Nahsicht) to the optical characterised by distance (Fernsicht).¹⁶⁸ Therefore, Egyptian pyramids appealed to the haptic sense (because the haptic reduces depth to surfaces so that, for example, sculpture appears schematic and sketchy), while late Roman art appealed to the optical (because it leaves visible the depth differences between the elements, in other word, is a three-dimensional perception).¹⁶⁹ The major difference to Read, if he had read Riegl in the original, is that Riegl differentiated between haptic and optical, but remained dedicated to sight, while Read spoke of the importance of actually touching and handling the object.¹⁷⁰ This is for him the reason, why sculpture is primarily an art of touch-space rather than of sight-space. In the latter respect, an association with Hildebrand, who also believes that an ‘awareness’ of a three-dimensional work is achieved by touch, can be drawn. However, as mentioned above (see Chapter 3.1.2), Hildebrand does not differentiate as clearly as Read between touch and sight. Furthermore, the Bauhaus, with which Read was familiar, also favoured the actual handling and touching of objects in their art classes, particularly Moholy-Nagy,¹⁷¹ and thus can also be associated with Read’s theory of perception.

The ‘creative process’: Form and space as volume and as mass Ponderability is, according to Read, ‘a vital depth, and our sensations, if we become aware of them, are sensations of thrust, of weight, of solid existence’, as achieved by Maillol and Arp.¹⁷² As practical means to draw attention to the mass, the ‘modern sculptor tends either to use stones that are mottled or striated or to leave a rougher surface, even one showing the marks of his chisel or ham-

over the haptic subsequently impacted on formal analysis approaches in art history. See Margaret Olin ‘Spätrömische Kunstindustrie: The Crisis of Knowledge in fin de siècle Vienna’, in: Stefan Krenn and Martina Pippal (eds.), Wien und die Entwicklung der kunsthistorischen Methode, Vienna: Böhlau, 1984, 29 – 36 and Margaret Olin, Forms of Representation in Alois Riegl’s Theory of Art, University Park: Pennsylvannia State University Press, 1992.  See Alois Riegl, Die spätrömische Kunst-Industrie nach den Funden in in Österreich-Ungarn, 20.  See Ionescu Vlad, ‘The Rigorous and the Vague: Aesthetics and Art History in Riegl, Wölfflin and Worringer,’ Journal of Art Historiography, vol. 9, 2013, 1– 24, 18 – 19. See also Riegl, Die spätrömische Kunst-Industrie nach den Funden in Österreich-Ungarn, 96 and 71.  Read, The Art of Sculpture, 48 – 50.  For Moholy-Nagy, see Wiltshire, Therapeutic Art Concepts and Practices in Britain and the United States (1937 – 1946), 50 – 51.  See Read, The Art of Sculpture, 87.

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mer.’¹⁷³ Going beyond the surface can also be achieved by projecting the ‘interior volumes.’ Here Read cites Rodin who recommends to represent the different parts of a body by expressing ‘in each swelling of the torso or of the limbs the efflorescence of a muscle or of a bone which lay deep beneath the skin. And so the truth of my figures, instead of being merely superficial, seems to blossom from within to the outside, like life itself.’¹⁷⁴ Ponderability is meant as a critique of the traditional understanding of pinning down sculpture to a ‘single line of ponderation’.¹⁷⁵ Luke argues that Read learnt from Schwitters that ‘the created object is always an approximation to the imaginative conception.’¹⁷⁶ In other words, Read accepts here that the object is not just a representation of an idea, but that the object aspires to the idea. Still, this understanding does not go so far as to say that the art object comes before the idea or the idea is constructed alongside the production of the art object, but rather assumes a possibility that the object is not an exact replica of the idea perceived before the object is produced. Assuming a gap between object and idea is not entirely different from Read’s writing in Circle, in which he also notes that the object needs to use ‘acute’ and ‘pure’ forms in order to convey the idea, although his essay is written from the perspective of perception rather than production of an art work. However, it adds an acknowledgement of a possible gap that may occur between the art object idea and its realisation. This also goes for Read’s understanding in The Art of Sculpture in which he cites twice Moore’s statement from 1937: This is what the sculptor must do. He must strive continually to think of, and use, form in its full spatial completeness. He gets the solid shape, as it were, inside his head—he thinks of it, whatever its size, as if he were holding it completely enclosed in the hollows of his hand. He mentally visualises a complex form from all round itself; he knows while he looks at one side what the other side is like; he identifies himself with its centre of gravity, its mass, its weight; he realizes its volume, as the space that the shape displaces in the air.¹⁷⁷

 See ibid., 72. Read refers here to Henry Moore’s Reclining Figure (1929), which was reproduced in black-and-white.  See ibid., 48, referring to Rodin, Art, trans. Romilly Feden, Boston 1912, 63 – 65.  Read, The Philosophy of Modern Art, 197. See Luke, ‘Sculpture for the Hand. Herbert Read in the Studio of Kurt Schwitters’, 240.  Herbert Read, Paintings and Sculptures by Kurt Schwitters, London 1944, cited after Luke, ‘Sculpture for the Hand. Herbert Read in the Studio of Kurt Schwitters’, 241. Luke does not provide a reference and thus also no page number.  From Henry Moore, ‘The Sculptor Speaks’, The Listener 18: 449, 18 August 1937, 338 – 40; cited in Read, The Art of Sculpture, 74.

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In view of space, space can therefore be imagined as volume and mass, can mentally be separated through form from unidentified space. However, he does not distinguish in this quotation between a volume of mass and a volume of space as clearly as Gabo has done in his contribution to Circle, as outlined above, for whom the former was enclosed space and the latter open space. What the quotation also shows is that Read had a very clear idea of the production and perception of an art work. Space for him was foremostly an idea that could be expressed in an art work, in a form and it could be perceived as shallow and deep as two- and as three-dimensional.

The relationship between perception and ‘crearive process’ regarding space To summarise Read’s concept of space, Read principally assumes two kinds of spaces: one that is the space of the environment, and another with which one can create a sculpture. Sculpture produces different spaces; its quality is called volume and its quantity mass. The spectator can perceive this space by an emotional sensation, while the artist as producer can imagine this space as form as well as create it as a ‘realised’ object. Volume and mass are topics frequently discussed by sculptors at the time, including in Circle. Unlike Gabo, Hepworth and Moore, Read is more concerned with the perception of art and also the historical development of space in view of art. Luke argues that perception does not only refer to the perception of an art work, but is also an important tool when creating a work.¹⁷⁸ Needless to say, perception and production are entangled, but one can still say that Read is more concerned with perception than with art production regarding space, understandably because he is an art critic and not an artist. If he speaks about production in The Art of Sculpture, Read assumes that a volume of mass (e. g. the mass of a wood block) is open, can create space by being carved.

Space consciousness as fundamental to human development Read published Icon and Idea a year after The Art of Sculpture (1955). Here space plays arguably a fundamental role in explaining ‘human development’. Although none of the chapters are titled as such (possibly the reason for not having been considered in secondary literature on Read’s spatial concepts so far), nevertheless space is a term used frequently throughout the book. While some of the topics of The Art of Sculpture reoccur, such as space consciousness and its devel-

 See Luke, ‘Sculpture for the Hand. Herbert Read in the Studio of Kurt Schwitters’, 240 – 1.

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opment in children, Icon and Idea is more detailed in view of space perception in Western art, although not differing in the understanding of space. Furthermore, he introduces a new distinction between symbolic and objective modes of expression, the latter being termed constructive. Read speaks of ‘space consciousness’ developed ‘from the practice of artists.’¹⁷⁹ In fact, he describes the development of art since Masaccio as one towards constructive art understood as ‘space creation’ and summarises it as follows: The struggle to represent realistically, to create an illusion of reality, caused the artist to disengage, from his vague field of sensation, first the voluminousness of physical entities like human beings, then the relative position of such entities in groups, and finally a felt and substantial space, welling between such entities and binding them together in a space which is also the space within which the spectator is situated. Space as such, conceptual, infinite, was a consequential induction from the concrete spaces first realized by the artist. But a fatal possibility existed: to make space creation the sole criterion in art.¹⁸⁰

And this possibility was fulfilled by the introduction of perspective as an ‘effective compositional device.’¹⁸¹ For Read, the use of central perspective meant that the art work was able to be treated independently of the spectator, as a ‘thing-initself.’¹⁸² Like in The Art of Sculpture, the space considered here is two-fold. On the one hand, it is the given space between object and spectator, and on the other, the space created by the object. New here is the distinction, which, for Read, is due to the development in ‘Western Europe’, from the Renaissance onwards, in which the main object of art works changed from creating ‘symbols for feeling or intuition’ to ‘construct[ing] an illusion of space through which objects could be seen in perspectival coherence.’¹⁸³ In other words, without giving a reason why this happened, space fell apart into ‘real’ space and ‘imagined’ space. The imagined space in the art work was then always measured by a comparison with the real space. Earlier in the book Icon and Idea, Read makes ‘space consciousness’ into the primary cause for differentiating between magic and religion, which he sets at the beginning of human development. For Read, the difference lies not in the question as to whether it is about the ‘creation or incarnation of a god’, but in a     

Read, Icon and Idea. The Function of Art in the Development of Human Consciousness, 100. Ibid. See ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 105.

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growing awareness of space—of space first as an indefinite and then as an infinite continuum. Before the gods could be conceived as invisible but conscious agents in human life, a space had to be conceived to which they could be relegated. The whole notion of transcendence, which reaches its purest form in the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, is conditioned step by step by the aesthetic awareness of space—Raumgefühl, as the Germans call it.¹⁸⁴

Referring here to Ernst Cassirer’s notion of space (i. e. Raumgefühl), these passages demonstrate how relevant space was to him in the understanding of human development, which he thought as being progressive and equal to the development towards a greater spatial awareness. In doing so, he differentiates between a perceptual (also termed ‘sensimotor’) and a representational (or ‘intellectual’) level on which space consciousness takes place:¹⁸⁵ to put it simply, there ‘is a sense of space, and an idea of space, and they have quite distinct origins.’¹⁸⁶ By referring to child development theory, Read argues that the sense of space lies before the representational and is linked to perception and motor activity.¹⁸⁷ Here a sense of space contains an involvement of the body rather than the intellect. A sense of space is then associated with magic, while the next step in human development is that of the idea of space, represented in imagination, which, for Read, is ‘the capacity to retain images.’¹⁸⁸ The distinction between perceptual and representational levels seems analogous to Read’s writing in The Art of Sculpture, which differentiates Egyptian sculpture from other types in terms of its linearity. However, describing them as such is new in the later book, showing a modification of Read’s ideas about space. While this kind of space is that of perception, the object also creates space, considered by Read in the later pages of Icon and Idea. Unlike in The Art of Sculpture, the author introduces a distinction between images which express personal or symbolic modes of expression (which includes surrealist objects) and those which are objective. The latter are objects described by Read as constructive images. While he applies in this book the concept of Gabo’s space as shown below, he introduces a new differentiation to his understanding of constructive images, namely a discussion of objective versus subjective.¹⁸⁹ For Read, constructive images are objective because they have an ‘inorganic’ appearance.¹⁹⁰ It also means       

Ibid., 59. See ibid. Ibid. See ibid., 60. Ibid. Ibid., 129. Ibid.

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that these images create a new reality in material and conception, a reality that is not bound to nature or existing reality, in the sense of being the artist’s world that is imitated in the art work, but a new world.¹⁹¹ For creating, or constructing, a new world, Read refers directly to Gabo and Pevsner, who have provided ‘the clearest indications of their intentions’,¹⁹² but also to Mondrian, which Read has not done in other publications in which he interprets Constructivism. Like Gabo and Pevsner, Mondrian creates a new realism based on universal emotion. Read interprets it as art in which ‘feeling is excluded […], that the work of art is no longer a symbol of a state of feeling but rather a logical necessity free from all personal and utilitarian limitations.’¹⁹³ He then continues to apply Gabo’s ideas to the analysis of constructive images which Read believes to have a socially transforming impact. By providing two examples, one of which is a work by Jean Arp, illustrated under the caption ‘Aquatic. Marble, 1953’, Read applies what he has formulated a few pages earlier, namely that the form and structure of this irregularly shaped marble block whose corners soften are ‘an image of our new spatial and plastic consciousness.’¹⁹⁴ This image does not only represent new life, but is ‘reality, for we only discover reality in the degree that we crystallize these images out of the Unknown.’¹⁹⁵ This understanding of the image is directly based on Gabo whom Read interprets as believing that ‘reality simply is the world of images constructed by the mind—concrete, tangible, visible images.’¹⁹⁶ In other words, reality consists of images that are constructs of the mind. By constructing new images, a new reality is created. These thoughts, however, formulated at the end of the book, are not related to space by Read. Instead, here Read briefly refers to the social obligations that such a new world demands. Using spatial awareness and its consciousness to explain the development of human nature goes beyond any definition of space put forward by the artists mentioned above. Although the topic of space is not coherently applied in all chapters and to all analyses of art works, it is conceptually foregrounded, so that the book Icon and Idea could have also been subtitled with a reference to space consciousness.

 Ibid., 133.  Ibid., 134.  Ibid., 131.  Ibid., 136.  Ibid., 124.  Ibid., 134. Here Read refers to a text by Gabo published as Naum Gabo, ‘On Constructive Realism,’ in: Dreier et al. (eds.), Three Lectures on Modern Art, New York: Philosophical Library, 1949, 63 – 87.

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Art and society in view of space Art and society is not only one of Read’s concerns in his aesthetics (such as the social obligations just mentioned), but also the title of one of his books published first in 1937, followed by a second edition in 1945.¹⁹⁷ According to the preface, the second edition provided a ‘complete revision of the text,’ the addition of an essay on Hogarth and the rearrangement of the illustrations.¹⁹⁸ However, a comparison of the 1937 book with the 1945 edition shows that, actually, there is little difference between the two. The book grew out of lectures given as part of Read’s Sydney Jones Lectureship in Art at the University of Liverpool from 1935 to 1936.¹⁹⁹ All of the lectures were based on Read’s belief that artists can change society. The objectives of the books were ‘to explore the general nature of the links between the form of society at any given period and the forms of their contemporary art’ and to show art’s capacity ‘to create a synthetic and selfconsistent world.’²⁰⁰ In view of Read’s assumption of the environment as space and the art object as space as mentioned above, such comments on art and society raises the question as to what extent the envisaged new society, achieved through art, is related to a concept of space. For Read, art is not a by-product of social development, but is ‘one of the original elements which go to form a society.’²⁰¹ Although stating such a fundamental premise, Read does not explain how the society is actually formed. What he makes clear, however, is that art is an ‘instinctive force’²⁰² and conveys ‘meanings of the world.’²⁰³ The latter (conveying meanings of the world) seems rather contradictory to the first quotation (i. e. that art is an instinctive force), as it conceives of art as the interpreter of society rather than as a creator or shaper of society. When Read defines the Superrealists he acknowledges that artists today are ‘profoundly conscious of that lack of organic connection between art and society which is characteristic of the modern world.’²⁰⁴ However, he does not go so far as to see them having the power to form society through art works but rather views the art works as a reflection of modern society. Such an interpretation is shared  See Herbert Read, Art and Society, London: William Heinemann, 1937 (in the US by the Macmillian Company in New York in 1937) and Herbert Read, Art and Society, London: Faber & Faber, 1945 (2nd edition).  Read, Art and Society (1945), vii.  See ibid., vii.  See Read, Art and Society (1937), xii. See also with a slightly different formulation in Read, Art and Society (1945), 2.  Read, Art and Society (1945), 5.  Ibid., 3.  Ibid., 7.  Ibid., 120.

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by King who believes that Read ‘saw the artist’s destiny being shaped by society.’²⁰⁵ Indeed, Read’s questionnaire given to artists who contributed to Unit One contained the following query: ‘Do you believe that the artist has a social function, i. e. do you regard him as an individual who must work directly from the basis of his own instincts and sensibility or do you think he should consciously aim at interpreting the social, political or religious ideas of the society to which he belongs?’²⁰⁶ This question shows an alternative when producing art works, namely either to concentrate on the self or on the surrounding society. The question itself implies that the artist can be seen as reacting to rather than actively transforming society, the latter being favoured by Read in his lectures published as Art and Society as mentioned above. Hence, Read’s position towards the relationship between art and society seems to have two aspects. On the one side, society shapes artists (as also believed by social art historians), and on the other, artists shape society, a paradigm mentioned by Read in Art and Society without further explanation. The latter is a constructive idea; it is also part of the Spatial Art History described in the introduction of this book and constitutes a distinction to those social art histories that only conceive of art as a reflection of society. As widely acknowledged, Read’s ideas about society and art, particularly those formulated in his book Art and Industry, can be closely associated with the Bauhaus.²⁰⁷ Art and Industry, a book whose cover and typography was designed by the Bauhaus artist Herbert Bayer (first published in London: Faber and Faber, 1933 and mentioned in the Appendix of Circle), already formulated some of the principles advocated in The Meaning of Art and Art Now such as harmony and proportion and the development of sensuous and intellectual perceptivity.²⁰⁸ Art and Industry is heavily illustrated with reproductions of chairs, radios, sofas, cooking utensils by Aalto and Chermayeff, artists who contributed to the publication of Circle (although the reproductions differ), but also works by Mies van der Rohe, of porcelain by Wedgewood and fountain pens by Mon-

 King, The Last Modern. A Life of Herbert Read, 141.  Herbert Read, ‘Introduction’, in: Read (ed.), Unit 1. The Modern Movement in English Architecture, Painting and Sculpture, 10 – 16, 15. Italics in the quotation correspond with the original.  See, for example, King, The Last Modern. A Life of Herbert Read, 141. Read’s ideas about art and society also affected his principles for education (such as in his book Education through Art). For details, see Dorit Barchana‐Lorand, ‘Art Conquers All? Herbert Read’s Education through Art,’ International Journal of Art & Design Education, vol. 34, no. 2, 2015, 169 – 79.  See Robin Kinross, ‘Herbert Read’s Art and Industry. A History,’ Journal of Design History, vol. 1, no. 1, 35 – 50.

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tblanc.²⁰⁹ However, he did not connect such ideas with space in this book, although writing about material and form. According to King, Read’s interest in art and society was distant from Marxist or Stalinist views, although Read quoted Marx in Art and Society frequently.²¹⁰ Read was convinced that a revolt against the existing social order should take place as outlined particularly in Poetry and Anarchism, a book first published in 1938 by the same publishing-house as Circle. His conviction, however, was nurtured by idealism and may be assessed as utopian, despite, as argued by King, Read’s ‘intimate knowledge of the social conditions of the late thirties.’²¹¹ Indeed, he was also politically active: as is well known, Read used his role as art critic to support the anti-fascists in the Spanish Civil War, acted against National Socialism through his involvement in the July 1938 exhibition of German art at the New Burlington Galleries, and defended Picasso’s Guernica against traditionalists such as Anthony Blunt.²¹² He also offered practical help for those in need before and in the war, such as in his role as vice-chairman of the Patrons of the National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief founded in 1938, and his support of refugees besides Gabo and of the war effort.²¹³ Therefore, his publications and activities demonstrate a fair amount of political and social involvement. Hence, an assessment of Read’s ideas about art and society as utopian is also based on an idea that social and political involvement means a specific activism. For Read, although revolution was a necessity, art formed the substance of change and not politics as in political thought and party alliance.

3.3.3 Read’s Publications on Gabo and Hepworth By 1939, Read had become well-known as a critic and book reviewer.²¹⁴ As such he also wrote a number of smaller contributions on Gabo and Hepworth before

 Read, Art and Industry. The Principles of Industrial Design; see also King, The Last Modern. A Life of Herbert Read, 41.  See King, The Last Modern. A Life of Herbert Read, 169. Read even opens his Chapter One of Art and Society with a quotation by Marx: ‘… in the domain of art certain important forms of it are possible only at a low stage of its development. Karl Marx: Critique of Political Economy’.  King, The Last Modern. A Life of Herbert Read, 169.  See Herbert Read, ‘Picasso’s Guernica’, London Bulletin, no. 6, October 1938, 6; cited by King, The Last Modern. A Life of Herbert Read, 172 (endnote 53).  For the former, see King, The Last Modern. A Life of Herbert Read, 171 and, for Read’s war effort, ibid., 206. For Read’s support of refugees, see Vinzent, Identity and Image. Refugee Artists from Nazi Germany in Britain, 1933-1945, 34, 70 – 1 and 83 – 4.  See King, The Last Modern. A Life of Herbert Read, 184.

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and during the war and books on modern British art, in which he also mentions these artists, after the war.²¹⁵ Moreover, from 1944 on Read also published in monographs on each of these artists’ works. Lavishly illustrated (even containing some coloured illustrations) and printed by Lund Humphries, the first was dedicated to Moore, often cited as Read’s favourite artist (1944), followed by a book on Nicholson in 1948, on Hepworth in 1952 and on Gabo in 1957. For Read, Moore, Hepworth and Gabo were not only ‘sculptors and friends’ to which he dedicated his book The Art of Sculpture (1956), but also considered to have produced works that form the climax of modern sculpture.²¹⁶ Being interested in space as outlined above as well as having contributed to Circle an essay in which space plays a role, raises the question as to how Read viewed the spatiality of Gabo and Hepworth, who, like Read, referred to space in their contributions to Circle. It is already surprising that Read’s introductory essays in The Philosophy of Modern Art, first published in 1952, do not mention space, despite the contained chapters (which are reprints of earlier publications) being dedicated to Gabo as well as Moore, Nicholson and Antoine Pevsner.²¹⁷ It suggests that Read was either only interested in concepts of space during certain periods of his life or left out consciously any reference to space when writing about Gabo and Hepworth. The following analysis will therefore explore the way in which Read did not only relate Hepworth and Gabo to their spatial concepts, but also the art critic’s role in disseminating the artists’ works, particularly in view of spatiality. While such an analysis could also be applied to other artists discussed by Read, the following will concentrate on Gabo and Hepworth as the two contributors who mentioned space in Circle. Arguably, Read was very much interested in Gabo’s work. Although being an advocate for Moore, there ‘is an evident conflict between Read’s intellectual commitment to Gabo and his emotional commitment to Moore’ as pointedly expressed by Thistlewood.²¹⁸

 See Herbert Read, The English Vision. An Anthology, London: G. Routledge, 1939; Herbert Read, Contemporary British Sculpture, London: Penguin Books, 1951 and Read, The Art of Sculpture. For references to Read’s smaller contributions, see below under each artist.  Read, The Art of Sculpture, s.p.  See Read, The Philosophy of Modern Art. This book includes only essays on male artists; Hepworth, for example, is left out, as if a philosophy of modern art, the title of the book, is masculine. On the other hand, space plays a relatively central role in Read’s Icon and Idea, London: Faber and Faber, 1955, as outlined above.  David Thistlewood, ‘Herbert Read’s Organic Aesthetic II, 1950-1968,’ in: Goodway (ed.), Herbert Read Reassessed, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1998, 233 – 47, 241.

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Read’s interpretation of Barbara Hepworth Read’s book on Barbara Hepworth published in 1952 was actually not his alone.²¹⁹ Like the Nicholson publication, Read’s name appears together with that of the artists as editors of the book. While Read introduced the book, Hepworth wrote a short text to each of the six chronologically organised sections on the sculptress’ works. These sections contain 160 full-page and half-page illustrations, most of which are in black-and-white, of Hepworth’s carvings and drawings to date. The book also encompasses a bibliography of all publications on Hepworth with the first ever being authored by Read, having appeared in 1932. Of the 101 entries of exhibition catalogues and essays in books and journals, some of which only mention Hepworth in the context of other artists, Read actually wrote 15, spread over the years from 1932 to 1952.²²⁰ After the appearance of the book, Read published four more contributions on Hepworth, namely a chapter dedicated to her in his book The Tenth Muse (1957), a further one in A Letter to a Young Painter (1962) and introductions to Hepworth’s two exhibitions held in New York in 1959 and 1966.²²¹ This means that Read was very interested in Hepworth’s work. The list of owners of the works illustrated in the 1952 book also reveals that Read owned six works by Hepworth at that time.²²² In his introduction to the book, Read does not refer to space, which is surprising in light of Hepworth’s mention of space in the title of one of the chapters (‘Rhythm and Space’) and in her text, in which she considers space as the opposite of volume and space as material, as outlined above in the section on Hepworth (see 3.2).²²³ Despite Read not referring to space, he acknowledges Hepworth’s artistic association with Nicholson and Gabo. While Read does not write much about Nicholson’s impact, he considers Gabo’s at length and sees

 See Hepworth and Read (eds.), Barbara Hepworth. Carvings and Drawings.  See N.N., ‘Bibliography’, in: ibid., xiii–xv. The list in the book provides entries for Read for 1932, 1933, 1936, 1938, two in 1939, 1944, three in 1948, 1949, two in 1950, 1951, 1952. The figures mentioned in the main text include also those in which Hepworth is only mentioned. Publications concentrating only on her consist of four introductions to exhibition catalogues and a short text in a journal: Herbert Read, ‘Foreword’, in: Arthur Tooth & Sons Galleries (ed.), Barbara Hepworth, exhibition catalogue, London: Arthur Tooth & Sons Galleries, 1932; Barbara Hepworth and Herbert Read (eds.), Retrospective Exhibition of the Works of Barbara Hepworth, exhibition catalogue, Wakefield: Halifax, 1944 and Herbert Read, ‘Barbara Hepworth. A New Phase,’ The Listener, vol. 1002, 18 April 1948, 592.  See Barbara Hepworth and Herbert Read (eds.), Hepworth, exhibition catalogue, New York: Galerie Chalette, Oct. to Nov. 1959 and Barbara Hepworth and Herbert Read (eds.), Barbara Hepworth, exhibition catalogue, New York: Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, April to May 1966.  See Hepworth and Read (eds.), Barbara Hepworth. Carvings and Drawings, xvi.  Barbara Hepworth, ‘Rhythm and Space’, in: ibid., s.p.

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it culminated in the fact that both sculptors created works that ‘express an essential reality which is beyond, or in some sense superior to, the reality of appearances.’²²⁴ By citing Gabo, such images should ‘provoke in us a desire to enhance life, assert it, and assist its further development.’ According to Read, Hepworth tried to create such sculptures.²²⁵ For Read, the difference from Gabo lies in how such works are created and in their perception, as Gabo conceives of the work as of ‘intuitive origin’ and being ‘mentally constructed.’²²⁶ It is a ‘projection from the visualizing consciousness, from the imagination.’²²⁷ For Hepworth—in the eyes of Read—the process is ‘not so clearly defined.’ She ‘sometimes begins with geometrical constructions (generally in the form of preliminary drawings) and modifies these vitalistically in the process of transforming them to a sculptural mass. But equally obviously she sometimes begins from a life-study.’²²⁸ While the former corresponds with Gabo, the latter, namely drawing images from the naturalistic world, does not. Therefore, Read considers her artistic process less clearly defined, a judgement that is based on Read’s reading of Gabo who seemingly defines his concept as being unambiguous. To conclude, while Read acknowledged associations with Nicholson and Gabo, it was only Hepworth herself who spoke of space. Therefore, in view of Hepworth, Read wrote many entries on Hepworth, promoting her work, but he did not act as a disseminator of Hepworth’s concept of space.

Read’s views on Gabo The monographic book on Gabo published by Lund Humphries, to which Read contributed an essay (as did Leslie Martin as outlined below), appeared as Gabo. Constructions, Sculpture, Paintings, Drawings, Engravings in 1957.²²⁹ Read also wrote introductions to a number of exhibition catalogues of Gabo’s work. These include Gabo’s solo show at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in New York in 1968 and the introduction to the 1948 exhibition which showed works by Pevs-

 Herbert Read, ‘Introduction’, in: ibid., ix–xii, x.  See ibid., x.  Ibid., xi.  Ibid.  Ibid.  See Gabo, Gabo. Constructions, Sculpture, Paintings, Drawings, Engravings. With Introductory Essays by Herbert Read and Leslie Martin, London: Lund Humphries, 1957. The book’s author is given as Gabo.

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ner and Gabo at the Museum of Modern Art.²³⁰ Moreover Read wrote reviews about Gabo’s exhibitions and referred to him in a number of his articles and book publications, including Art Now, The Art of Sculpture, The Politics of the Unpolitical, Icon and Idea as well as The Philosophy of Modern Art as already mentioned.²³¹ He also wrote an essay together with Gabo.²³² Compared with Hepworth (and Nicholson), Read published slightly less on Gabo in numbers (of the 201 publications on Gabo until 1957 mentioned in the bibliography, 10 were by Read), but as he published together with Gabo (but not with Hepworth and Nicholson with whom he only co-authored books), the importance of Gabo to Read does not seem less. The Lund Humphries monographic book, however, remains Read’s largest publication on the artist, if one includes the illustrations. Like the book on Hepworth, Read does not engage extensively with Gabo’s ideas of space in the Lund Humphries book or any other of his publications on the artist. This is remarkable in light of Read’s concept of space outlined above and of the assessment of Gabo by Thistlewood, who argues that despite some disagreements between Gabo and Read over Surrealism in the 1940s, Read ‘recognized Gabo’s work to be a crystallization of “the purest sensibility for harmonious relationships”, aspiring to “the highest point ever reached by the aesthetic sensibility of man”, and in this sense to be appropriately extending given concepts of form and space.’²³³ Indeed, Read does not refer extensively to Gabo’s concept of space, but he always associates Gabo with spatial construc-

 See Chanin, Gabo, Latta and Pevsner (eds.), Naum Gabo; Antoine Pevsner (with an Introduction by Herbert Read). This introduction was re-published in Read’s Philosophy of Modern Art, 1952/3 as mentioned above. See also Christopher Cornford, Naum Gabo and Herbert Read (eds.), Naum Gabo (with an Introduction by Herbert Read and Christopher Cornford), exhibition catalogue, Buffalo, N. Y.: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, 1968.  For the reviews an articles, see Herbert Read, ‘The Present Situation of Art in Europe,’ Hudson Review (New York), vol. 1, Spring 1948, 50 – 64, 57– 8; Herbert Read, ‘Realism and Abstraction in Modern Art,’ Edios (London), vol. 1, May-June 1950, 26 – 37; Herbert Read, ‘Vulgarity and Impotence. Speculations on the Arts,’ Horizon (London), vol. 28, April 1942, 167– 76; Herbert Read, ‘Sculpture. Construction in Space,’ Yale Associates Bulletin (New Haven), Feb. 1957, 13 – 4. Herbert Read, ‘Naum Gabo,’ in: N.N. (ed.), Schwitters, Kurt, New York: The Pinacotheca Gallery, 1948, s.p.; Herbert Read, ‘Memorial to Sadie A. May,’ Baltimore Museum of Art News, vol. 15, no. 3, Dec. 1951, 3 – 4; Herbert Read, ‘A New Construction for Baltimore,’ Magazine of Art (New York), vol. 45, no. 2, Feb. 1952, 71– 4.  See Naum Gabo and Herbert Read, ‘Constructive Art. An Exchange of Letters’, Horizon (London), vol. 10, no. 55, July 1944, pp. 57– 65.  See Thistlewood, Herbert Read. Formlessness and Form, 86. Thistlewood cites from the unpublished correspondence between Read and Gabo and from the article based on correspondence between Read and Gabo published as Naum Gabo and Herbert Read, ‘Constructive Art. An Exchange of Letters,’ Horizon (London), vol. 10, no. 55, July 1944, 57– 65.

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tions and, in this way, as Thistlewood has noted, one can add an association with the extension of spatial concepts. In this way also, one may understand better Thistlewood’s comment mentioned above that Gabo was ‘intellectually committed’ to Gabo.²³⁴ What Read does refer to is the constructive idea and constructivist art, sometimes without distinguishing clearly between constructivism and constructive in his publications. In his contribution to Horizon in 1942, for example, he characterises the ‘constructivists’ as artists who have dispensed ‘with the pictorial image, not the image itself: for a certain defined space, or area of colour, is no less an image than the image of a flower or a human face.’²³⁵ In view of space, Read here distinguishes constructivist art as art that is defined by space. Although not referring directly to Gabo in this sentence, he associates Gabo with it when he continues to write that the ‘relevant question is whether the constructivist’s use of images is sensible and organic, and I must assert that in the case of those artists who really understand what they are doing (Gabo for instance), it undoubtedly is.’²³⁶ However, he then accuses constructivism of suffering from an ‘illusion of the transcendence of the work of art’ and compares it with ‘metaphysicians’ and ‘platonic models of reality.’²³⁷ Such comparisons are justified and a consequence of Read’s belief in space as a perceptual category, but they would be disagreeable to Gabo’s concept of space as material which he understands as anything but perception, but rather as ‘real’ and therefore not illusionary, nor metaphysical, nor transcendental. Here, Read’s judgement is committed to a Kantian understanding of space rather than that of Gabo or Hildebrand. The omission of a lengthy discussion of Gabo’s spatial concept by Read is further remarkable in light of Leslie Martin’s essay, following Read’s, in the Lund Humphries monograph. Martin, who was one of the main editors of Circle, refers to space when he assesses the relationship between Gabo’s constructions and architectural ideas. He notes (with reference to Gabo’s second essay in Circle) that the work of the ‘early Constructivist artist was […] intended to become not merely an object in space but, like architecture itself, it must define, limit,

 Thistlewood, ‘Herbert Read’s Organic Aesthetic II, 1950-1968’, 241.  See Read, ‘Vulgarity and Impotence. Speculations on the Arts’, 274. Italics correspond with the original.  See ibid., 167– 76. Brackets and text within correspond with the original text.  See ibid., 275.

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and enclose spaces.’²³⁸ For him, the value of Gabo’s idea for architecture lies in the way Gabo suggests how structures can be lightweight but still strong through surfaces that enclose volumes.²³⁹ He refers here to Gabo’s stereometric cube illustrated in his essay in Circle and discussed above.²⁴⁰ Furthermore, Martin states that Gabo preferred spheres (to angles), which, for the artist, constituted the ‘visual character of space.’²⁴¹ Martin explains Gabo’s understanding of spheres as following: ‘If two circular discs of paper are cut along a radius, the cuts can be slid into each other so that the discs interpenetrate at right angles. If the interpenetrating circles are spun round on an axis […] they create a spheric volume.’²⁴² In appearance and structure, the Gabo book forms a close association with that on Hepworth. The two introductory essays are followed by 132 numbered illustrations in black-and-white and in colour (the latter particularly of his sculptures from the 1950s and his paintings from 1935) that provide a survey of Gabo’s works. Biographical notes situate and contextualise the artist in time and place, while a bibliography provides further reading, mentioning Read’s publications on Gabo as outlined above. Unlike the books on the two other artists, this volume has more sections in the bibliography as well as in the reproduction of the illustrations. The former is organised alphabetically by ‘books and booklets’, ‘articles and reviews’ and ‘exhibitions and catalogues’. The latter separates the works by medium: first the ‘constructions and sculpture’, followed by ‘stereoscopic reproductions’, ‘paintings’ and ‘wood engravings’. These divisions are necessary because of the vast material on and from Gabo by the time the book was published. It was also one of the last artist monographs (co‐)published by Read in the Lund Humphries series. Furthermore, the book not only contains two essays on the artist (one by Read and another one by Martin as just mentioned), but also eleven writings by Gabo, co-edited by him, or about Gabo, among them Gabo’s second and main essay from Circle ‘Sculpture: Carving and Construction in Space’ as well as the Realistic Manifesto from 1920. This manifesto is reproduced in Russian on brown paper which can be unfolded to an A3 size roughly. Furthermore the

 Leslie Martin, ‘Construction and Intuition,’ in: Gabo (ed.), Gabo. Constructions, Sculpture, Paintings, Drawings, Engravings, with Introductory Essays by Herbert Read and Leslie Martin, London: Lund Humphries, 1957, 9 – 10, 9.  See ibid.  See ibid.  Gabo, ‘no title’, in: Gabo, Gabo. Constructions, Sculpture, Paintings, Drawings, Engravings. With Introductory Essays by Herbert Read and Leslie Martin, s.p.  Martin, ‘Construction and Intuition’, 10.

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book has a thick back cover in order to provide space for magnifying glasses made of plastic which are inserted here. Such inserts are reminiscent of popup books, not unusual at the time. These signal a development in printing techniques of this series, from the simple black-and-white-illustrations published in the first volume to the inclusion of colour and more adventurous material, offering the user the opportunity not only to read and view but to get even more physically involved than only turning the pages, by using the magnifying glass and popping out the folded page. Despite such possibilities, however, it is left to the user to decide how to apply the magnifying glasses (and the foldable manifesto), as no instructions are provided, neither by the publisher nor the editor. Instead of writing about Gabo’s spatial concept, Read was concerned with the definition of nature, outlining that Gabo understood constructive art not as the opposite of nature (in the sense of a ‘sensuous experience’ of ‘flowers and clouds, of beasts and birds’), but rather as penetrating nature ‘more profoundly’.²⁴³ For Read, Gabo is the first to define art as a ‘fundamental unity of all visual forms’, because nature is understood by the artist as comprising ‘the whole universe, with stars in their mathematical courses and atoms ordained in crystalline patterns.’²⁴⁴ Such an interpretation includes also those works by Gabo from the 1930s, when he not only produced work made from synthetic material such as plastic and nylon, but also used stones that he incised as analysed above. If Gabo is mentioned by Read, such as in his book The Art of Sculpture, he cites him as having included movement in his works.²⁴⁵ Gabo’s use of spheric sculpture, one of which was termed Fountain, is interpreted as ‘a desire to represent the movement of water.’²⁴⁶ In Read’s Icon and Idea, the other book, which refers to space, Gabo also plays a role in terms of the construction of a new reality through art which Read says Gabo achieves in his work. One can therefore summarise that, while Gabo is not identified with his concept of space as outlined extensively in Circle, but rather with movement and rhythm, Read’s understanding of space is in parts similar to that of Gabo, probably because of having used some of the same sources as analysed below.

 Herbert Read, ‘Introduction’, in: Gabo, Gabo. Constructions, Sculpture, Paintings, Drawings, Engravings. With Introductory Essays by Herbert Read and Leslie Martin, 7– 8, 7.  Ibid.  See Read, The Art of Sculpture, 99.  See ibid., 101.

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Summary Despite Read publishing on Hepworth and Gabo extensively, he does not publicise their concept of space. It has been other qualities that he used in the interpretation of their works, such as the portrayal of movement and the process of art production, starting with constructions or life studies (Hepworth) to the creation of a new reality through constructive art (Gabo). This means that despite him being a promoter of both artists in disseminating their works through publications, it was not the concept of space that he put forward. However, Read identifies ‘constructivist’ art as art defined by space. Read has not published only on these artists; he also wrote on other artists who contributed to Circle, namely Arp, Kandinsky, Klee, and Nicholson as well as Moore.²⁴⁷ Indeed, Read had a broad interest in art contemporary to him, which also included Paul Nash and a general support of modern German art from the 1930s, the latter possibly because of his interest in art and society that he saw also expressed by the Bauhaus and his anti-fascist attitude that inclined him to support those artists who had to flee Nazi Germany.²⁴⁸ Read focused on painting and sculpture, less on architecture, and further forms of art also represented in Circle such as typography and choreography. The only other topic relevant in Circle in which Read took an interest, was art education, as mentioned above. In Circle, education was represented by an essay from Walter Gropius, who was actually cited by Read in his book on education.²⁴⁹ Having not extensively referred to spatiality—despite Gabo and Hepworth having done so repeatedly in their own writing in addition to other contributors to the Lund Humphries books, such as Martin—raises the question of which other sources may have impacted Read’s understanding of his concept of space.

 See Herbert Read, Arp, London: Thames and Hudson, 1968. Herbert Read, Modernista taiteesta. Paul Klee, Helsinki: Suomen Taiteiljaseura, 1987. Herbert Read (ed.), Klee. With an Introduction and Notes by Herbert Read, London: Faber and Faber, 1948. Paul Klee, On Modern Art, with an Introduction by Herbert Read, London: Faber and Faber, 1966. Herbert Read, Kandinsky. With an Introduction and Notes by Herbert Read, London: Faber and Faber, 1959.  See above. As a further example, see his introduction to Peter Thoene (alias Oto BihaljiMerin), Modern German Art, trans. Charles Fullman, Penguin Books: Harmondsworth, 1938.  See Herbert Read, Education through Art, New York: Pantheon Books, 1974 (first published by Faber and Faber, London in 1943), 299. He cites Gropius, though only as the designer of the Village College in Impington, Cambridgeshire.

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3.3.4 Philosophical Associations Regarding Space As already indicated in the previous sections, Read cites a number of philosophers and art historians, many of them being German, in his conceptualisation of space. Some of these have also played a role for Gabo and Hepworth, as outlined above. Without any claim to be exhaustive, due to the limitations of this section, the following provides an insight into those authors, particularly Worringer, Bergson, Fiedler and Hildebrand, in terms of spatial concepts. Read translated Worringer’s book Formprobleme der Gotik published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons in London in 1927, under the title Form in Gothic, and wrote an introduction to the book. According to Andrew Causey, Read was the only art critic in England in 1930 interested in German art and art historians.²⁵⁰ Causey also sees a close association between Worringer and Read’s monographs of the 1940s and 1950s, especially those on Moore and Nicholson that appeared as part of the Lund Humphries series mentioned above.²⁵¹ Therefore, this line of inquiry will be deepened below. Read actually dedicates his book The Philosophy of Modern Art, which outlines his aesthetic views, to Worringer, calling him ‘my esteemed master in the philosophy of art.’²⁵² Worringer is mentioned several times throughout the entire book. This indicates Worringer’s relevance to Read throughout the 1940s and at least until the publication date of the Philosophy of Modern Art in 1952.²⁵³ Read paid tribute particularly to Worringer’s distinction between abstraction and empathy, which Worringer laid out in his influential book Abstraction and Empathy, first published as Abstraktion und Einfühlung in 1907.²⁵⁴ In his introduction to the Ben Nicholson book published in 1948 by Lund Humphries, Read cites from this book on what empathy meant: ‘The source of the pleasure felt by the spectator before the products of art of this kind [i. e. ‘vital art’, which ‘can be broadly described as naturalism or realism’] is a feeling of increased vi-

 See Andrew Causey, ‘Herbert Read and Contemporary Art,’ in: Goodway (ed.), Herbert Read Reassessed, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1998, 123 – 43, 126.  See ibid., 139.  See Read, The Philosophy of Modern Art, s.p.  The 1940s can be assumed, as the book includes a number of essays being first published earlier, such as the chapter on Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner had already appeared in 1948. See MoMA (ed.), Naum Gabo. Antoine Pevsner, with an introduction by Herbert Read, exhibition catalogue, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1948.  See Wilhelm Worringer, Abstraktion und Einfühlung. Ein Beitrag zur Stilpsychologie, Paderborn, Munich: Fink, 2012 (online version with a critical introduction) and Wilhelm Worringer, Abstraction and Empathy. A Contribution to the Psychology of Style. trans. Michael Bullock, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953.

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tality, a process which the German writers on aesthetics call empathy (Einfühlung).’²⁵⁵ Empathy is therefore for Read a ‘feeling of liking for, and pleasure in, the forms and movements to be found in nature.’²⁵⁶ Such perception is opposed to ‘geometrical art. It most obviously exhibits no delight in nature and no striving after vitality.’²⁵⁷ Read adds that ‘Worringer calls (this) the tendency to abstraction.’²⁵⁸ Read argues that abstract tendencies have occurred throughout the history of art, a view that has been accredited to Worringer, as before him, it was argued that abstract art was inferior to, what Worringer called, ‘realist’ art. Read therefore concludes that it is an individual’s choice which art expression the artist follows. Taking the example of Ben Nicholson, Read even notes that one and the same artist can apply both styles.²⁵⁹ Hereby, the abstract and realist styles are seen as expressions of two opposing psychological phases, namely as ‘fear’ and ‘confidence’. For Read, an ‘affirmation of the world results in a naturalistic style, while its ‘rejection’ leads to an ‘abstract style.’²⁶⁰ Hence, Read follows Worringer in the appreciation of abstract art as the outcome of a psychological need or an artistic will rather than artistic incompetence. Worringer’s emphasis on empathy can be associated with Read’s perception theory that is based on emotional awareness. Nowhere, however, does Read cite Worringer’s concept of space, which actually lies behind the idea of empathy. In Abstraction and Empathy, Worringer notes that the suppression of space was dictated by the urge to abstraction through the mere fact that it is precisely space which links things to one another, which imparts to them their relativity in the world-picture, and because space is the one thing it is impossible to individualise. In so far, therefore, as a sensuous object is still dependent upon space, it is unable to appear to us in its closed material individuality. All endeavour was therefore directed toward the single form set free from space.²⁶¹

 Herbert Read, ‘Introduction,’ in: Nicholson and Read (eds.), Ben Nicholson. Paintings, Reliefs, Drawings, London: Lund Humphries, 1948, 13 – 20, 14. Read cites from an English summary of the book made by T. E. Hulme in a lecture delivered in 1914 and published in the collection of his writings entitled Speculations, London: Kegan Paul, 1924, 75 – 109, as the book was not translated by the time Read cited it.  Worringer cited after Read, ‘Introduction,’ in: Herbert Read and Ben Nicholson (eds.), Ben Nicholson, 14.  Worringer cited after Read, ‘Introduction’, 14.  Ibid. Italics correspond with the original.  Ibid., 16.  Ibid.  See Worringer, Abstraction and Empathy. A Contribution to the Psychology of Style, 22. For the German, see Worringer, Abstraktion und Einfühlung. Ein Beitrag zur Stilpsychologie, 87: ‘Die Unterdrückung der Raumdarstellung war schon deshalb ein Gebot des Abstraktionsdranges,

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This ‘single form set free from space’ referred to abstract art, which, according to Worringer, excluded the representation of space.²⁶² For Worringer, space is therefore ‘the major enemy of all striving after abstraction, and hence, is the first thing to be suppressed in the representation. This postulates avoiding the third dimension in the representation, namely the dimension of depth, because this is the authentic dimension of space.’²⁶³ The idea of such space as depth is related to earlier writings, such as those by Fiedler and Hildebrand, the latter of whom is cited by Worringer himself as proof for the abstract artist’s urge to create a ‘single form set free from space’, according to which artistic form is only acquired when it has a flat appearance even though it is cubic.²⁶⁴ Hence, in terms of space, Read’s concept does not much have in common with that by Worringer, which explains why Read does not refer to Worringer’s ideas of space. Scholarship on Read has noted associations which Read formed with writings of Henri Bergson, Conrad Fiedler and Adolf von Hildebrand. Already the first book on Read (published in 1944), which examines Read as a poet, critic and philosopher,²⁶⁵ and which was edited by Henry Treece, who knew Read personally,²⁶⁶ acknowledges Read’s direct reference of Bergson.²⁶⁷ Read cited from Bergson’s book Creative Evolution (translated in English in 1911) in his Annals of Innocence and Experience, a book first published by Faber & Faber in 1940: Our eye perceives the features of the living being, merely as assembled. Not as mutually organised. The intention of life, the simple movement that runs through the lines, that binds them together and gives them significance, escapes it. This intention is just what the artist tried to regain, in placing himself back within the object by a kind of sympathy, in breaking down, by an effort of intuition, the barrier that space puts up between him and his model.²⁶⁸

weil es der Raum gerade ist, der die Dinge miteinander verbindet, der ihnen ihre Relativität im Weltbilde gibt, und wie der Raum sich eben nicht individualisieren läßt. Soweit also ein sinnliches Objekt noch vom Raum abhängig ist, kann es uns nicht in seiner geschlossenen stofflichen Individualität erscheinen. Alles Streben richtete sich also auf die vom Raum erlöste Einzelform.’  See Worringer, Abstraction and Empathy. A Contribution to the Psychology of Style, 37.  Ibid., 38 – 9.  Ibid., 23.  See Henry Treece, ‘Introduction’, in: Treece (ed.), Herbert Read. An Introduction to his Work, 7– 41, 8.  See King, The Last Modern. A Life of Herbert Read, 201.  Henry Treece, ‘Introduction’, 27.  Bergson, Creative Evolution, trans. Arthur Mitchell, New York: Holt, 1911; quoted after Herbert Read, Annals of Innocence and Experience, London: Faber & Faber, 1940, 191.

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Having written this in 1940, just after Circle had appeared three years before, is significant. The reference does not only mention space here, but also intuition, a concept relevant to Read’s idea of the perception of space as outline above. Here Read sees the artist as placing himself into the art object and as such, he seemingly overcomes the space between the artist and the model, possibly because of the artist imagining the object in his/her head, as Read has quoted from Moore outlined further below. Therefore the artist can overcome the distance between spectator and the art object’s model. This process is understood as an intention of life, a movement towards form that is reminiscent of Conrad Fiedler’s ideas about the perception of art. Indeed, Read also knew of Conrad Fiedler. In his book The Forms of Things Unknown. Essays Towards an Aesthetic Philosophy (1960), Read cites Fiedler, accrediting him with being ‘the first philosopher to suggest that the knowledge of reality given by the visual arts is sui generis and in no necessary degree coincident with the knowledge of reality which we owe to science or philosophical speculation.’²⁶⁹ Read continues citing from Fiedler in order to differentiate art from language and literature. Read believes that art ‘creates the form for that which does not yet exist for the human mind. Art does not start from abstract thought in order to arrive at forms; rather, it climbs up from the formless to the formed, and in the process is found its entire mental meaning.’²⁷⁰ The artist, as Read writes in the next chapter titled ‘The creative process’, is the one ‘who discovers the form—that is to say, the artist’s peculiarity is that he possesses what Schiller called the formative instinct (Formtrieb), and there is an intimate relationship between the pregnancy of the artist’s inspiration and the ability to give that inspiration its appropriate form. The form is found by instinct […], the form evolves organically.’²⁷¹ Apparently, form is not a pre-given but, indeed, discovered by the artist. Such an understanding is slightly different from Read’s explanation of how an artist works, according to which the artist thinks of a form and then creates it. As cited above Read refers to Moore’s statement from 1937 in his Art of Sculpture: the artist ‘gets the solid shape, as it were, inside his head—he thinks of it, whatever its size […].’²⁷² Here it is the formless that becomes form, but it is unclear

 Herbert Read, The Forms of Things Unknown. Essays Towards an Aesthetic Philosophy, Cleveland and New York: Meridian Books. The World Publishing Company, 1963 (first published in London: Faber and Faber, 1960), 39 – 40.  Ibid., 42.  Ibid., 62. The italics in the quotation correspond with the original.  Henry Moore, ‘The Sculptor Speaks’, The Listener, vol. 18, no. 449 (18 Aug. 1937), 338 – 40, cited after Read, The Art of Sculpture, 74.

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whether it is abstract or formless (before it becomes form). According to Read’s other writing, it is seemingly thought as being formless (and not abstract or a priori). An artist who displays inspiration develops the form organically. For Read, such an understanding of art is different from an ‘idealistic explanation: art was significant, not in itself, but because it embodied transcendental ideas’, which Read describes as a ‘fallacy’ of former ages.²⁷³ Indeed, it seems as if the formless is not perceived as abstract, but as something that needs to be put into form. In other words, an artist will put something (which could refer to space as concrete) into form, which is then the art work. Despite being so clear about the creative process, art and aesthetic experience, this book also shows that form remains relevant to Read’s aesthetics, while space as a concept disappeared from his writings in the 1960s, possibly because form seems to be more relevant than space for art. Indeed, for Hildebrand, form was also substantial, as it was considered as something independent of the object’s changing appearance (through perception), because form depends on the object.²⁷⁴ Luke sees an influence on Read in the adaptation of Hildebrand’s idea of the ‘spatial continuum’.²⁷⁵ Indeed, Read adopts the idea of the spatial continuum; he describes it as analogous to an aquarium, whose ‘most essential attribute is continuity.’ Hildebrand mentions the spatial continuum in his seminal book Das Problem der Form in der Bildenden Kunst already mentioned above: Let us therefore imagine the spatial continuum as a body of water in which we can submerge containers and thus define individual volumes as specifically formed individual bodies without losing the conception of the whole as one continuous body of water … The boundary of an object is, strictly speaking, also the boundary of the body of air surrounding it. The question then becomes one of arranging objects (and with them the kinaesthetic idea that they evoke) in such a way that they do not remain fragmented but become continuous; we must connect one object with another in every direction of a general space, so that, we, on the basis of such kinaesthetic ideas, experience and understand space as a total volume or as a general space, a continuous and unbroken whole.²⁷⁶

 See Read, The Forms of Things Unknown. Essays Towards an Aesthetic Philosophy, 75.  See Hildebrand, Das Problem der Form in der bildenden Kunst … Fü nfte unverä nderte Auflage, Chapter Two.  See Luke, ‘Sculpture for the Hand. Herbert Read in the Studio of Kurt Schwitters’, 241.  Adolf von Hildebrand, ‘The Problem of Form in the Fine Arts,’ in: Malgrave and Ikonomou (eds.), Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873-1893, Santa Monica, CA: The Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1994, 128 – 9. This is a translation of Hildebrand, Das Problem der Form in der Bildenden Kunst, Strassburg: Heitz, 1893, the first edition of the book.

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This quotation is about space as a phenomenological occurrence, the perception of form in one’s mind. Read can be here closely associated with Hildebrand in terms of individual volumes—which would be the forms imagined by Read— but, is further removed from the latter in view of these volumes consisting in a totality of space and being connected with each other to become continuous. Read only speaks of the form as being cut out and being ‘mentally’ imagined from all sides, which could be imagined as a Hildebrandian continuous space in which this happens as part of the perception of form, but Read is not concerned with the rest of the space as an ‘unbroken whole’ that consists of and encompasses all mental forms. Luke also argues that Read criticises Hildebrand for his ‘fixation on relief sculpture’ calling it ‘space shyness.’²⁷⁷ This term, according to Luke, was appropriated from Worringer, who describes with it—so Read in The Art of Sculpture— ‘a phobic reaction to the very space the beholder and sculpture share—a space Hildebrand had acknowledged only to remove himself in anxious retreat for the comprehensive “distant view.”’²⁷⁸ To sum up, the perceptual idea of space that was in the forefront of Read’s mind was very much rooted in the continental discussions on perception developed around the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Form thereby played an important role as something that seemingly was closely related to the perception and creation of art works. While Read’s idea of the creation of art works from the formless to form (in the process of cutting the form out, a process that involves spatial dimensions), firstly in the artist’s mind, can be related to Hildebrand who was also interested in how the artist creates objects, the relationship that the actual form (of the object) and the perceived one have with each other is rooted in Fiedler. The latter, together with Bergson, provide an explanation of how an artist ‘invents’ such form, namely through a force, intuition or instinct. Likewise, the perception of form is made possible through empathy with the form. Both are not considered intellectually reflective processes but rather as feelings of liking for Read. What all the theories mentioned above have in common is a distinction made between perception and ‘creation’ of an artwork and, in view of space, of space being related closely with form, because as soon as one thinks about a form, it is in a spatial dimension, except for an abstract form, so Worringer, that is removed from any space. This is an idea, however, which Read did not take on.

 Luke, ‘Sculpture for the Hand. Herbert Read in the Studio of Kurt Schwitters’, 241.  Read, The Art of Sculpture, 54, also cited in Luke, ‘Sculpture for the Hand. Herbert Read in the Studio of Kurt Schwitters’, 241.

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3.3.5 Summary As shown above, while space became a relevant topic for Read’s later work, his essay in Circle stood at the beginning of such ideas, which formed a close relationship to a new understanding of space first developed in the nineteenth century by writers such as Hildebrand and Fiedler and followed up by Bergson, Worringer and others in the twentieth century, who elaborated it further. Although the publication in Circle stood at the beginning of Read’s occupation with space, he developed the concept into a major topic in his later writings. It can be related to that of Gabo and Hepworth and their ideas of volume of space, space as material and the effective form/inner force of an artwork that art works need to have, but Read has expanded the concept further, both in terms of human development and in terms of the perception and the production of art. This also explains Read’s association with ideas developed by Worringer, who was more concerned with art perception, rather than Wölfflin, who devised systems to describe art works and therefore was possibly closer to questions about the production of artworks than their perception. For Read, the perception of an artwork is the perception of its space which can be perceived sensuously and emotionally, the latter signalling a higher stage in human development. Perception involves sight and touch as well as an object which needs to have an effective form that is acute and pure. Unlike former concepts of perception, Read assumes a ponderability between object and viewer, and therefore perception as motion rather than stasis. In terms of art production (considered as creative process rather than technique), Read argues that the artist needs to think of a form and thus spatially imagine it and then produce it. For Gabo and Hepworth, space was not merely something imagined and part of perception but rather thought of as material. Their concern was about the techniques of producing works. Space as material is also prevalent in some of Read’s writings on the artwork itself in and around the publication of Circle. Therefore, Read’s understanding of the artwork as object assumes space as concrete (particulary in view of constructive art), while the creative process emphasises form. Read’s concept of perception understands space as something that is part of an art object and its form but not necessarily as ‘material.’ In light of Read’s role as a promoter of constructive art, particularly of those artists who contributed to Circle and developed a concept of space, one cannot just say that he functioned as their interpreter. He did so in the way that he wrote about their art, but he did not disseminate the artists’ spatial concepts. As shown along the monographic publication series by Lund Humphries, he did not write about the spatial concepts of Gabo and Hepworth despite them having essays referring to space published in the same book. Read’s publications reveal that he

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seems to have been inspired by ideas on space, both by the artists and their sources, but also by others who were interested in space, revealing rather how widespread the relevance of spatiality was in the first half of the twentieth century. Indeed, Stokes, the other important art critic who was also in close contact with Hepworth, as mentioned above, also wrote about space, although he was not asked to write an essay for Circle. For Stokes, space played a much more important role than for Read in the 1930s. Stokes does not only publish a book titled Inside Out. An Essay in the Psychology and Aesthetic Appeal of Space in 1947,²⁷⁹ but already writes in his book Stones of Rimini (first published in 1934) that stone is space: ‘We see masonry as solid space, as an outwardness which symbolizes the sum of expression.’²⁸⁰ In this monograph on Adrian Stokes published in 2009, which has an entire chapter on space, Stephen Kite argues that indeed space played the foremost role in Stokes’ theory.²⁸¹ He contextualises Stokes’ spatiality within architectural theory, referring to August Schmarsow and Bernard Berenson, and argues that it was particularly space and mass, the latter understood as substance, with which Stokes was concerned.²⁸² Moreover, Stokes defined ‘carving’ as different from ‘modelling’ in painting. In Colour and Form published in the same year as Circle, Stokes notes that modelled canvases are ‘purely plastic creations’ that do not ‘disclose […] the significance of what already exists.’ These use light effects, chiaroscuro. Unlike modelled ones, ‘carved’ paintings disclose the forms painted.²⁸³ Stokes understands this as each colour attaining equality of outwardness, of each shape being ‘carved’ and revealing the others without one being used as a backdrop.²⁸⁴ For Stokes, ‘colour is the ideal medium of carving conception.’²⁸⁵ Gabo as well as Hepworth were also concerned with carving, but rather in sculpture and, in Circle, as different from constructions. However, while for Gabo particularly, carving reveals space as enclosed (because the emphasis is on the mass rather than on space), for Stokes carving discloses the forms. Both, however, open and enclosed space, constructions and carvings, are part of the construc-

 See Adrian Stokes, Inside Out. An Essay in the Psychology and Aesthetic Appeal of Space, London: Faber and Faber, 1947.  Adrian Stokes, ‘Adrian Stokes, Stones of Rimini,’ in: Stokes (ed.), The Critical Writings of Adrian Stokes, vol. I, London: Thames and Hudson, 1978 (first published in 1934), 181– 301, 187.  See Kite, Adrian Stokes. An Architectonic Eye. Critical Writings on Art and Architecture, 131.  See ibid., 132.  Adrian Stokes, ‘Colour and Form,’ in: Stokes (ed.), The Critical Writings of Adrian Stokes, vol. II, London: Thames and Hudson, 1978 (first published in 1937), 7– 83, 22.  See ibid., 24– 5.  Ibid., 24.

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tive idea that consists of making space visible. In this respect, it is surprising that Stokes was considered only for a contribution of a quotation to Circle, particularly as he knew one of the editors, Ben Nicholson, and also Hepworth very well. ²⁸⁶ Furthermore, Stokes wrote about Hepworth’s sculptures in 1933, defining them as carvings.²⁸⁷ Therefore, these associations show closeness, despite differences in conceptual understandings of space and form, but underpin the argument about the relevance of spatiality for artists and art critics at the time. In fact, Michaela Ott and Elke Uhl have shown that, since Jacob Burkhardt’s Cicerone (first published in 1855), art-historical writings refer to space in their analyses of art.²⁸⁸ As already mentioned in the Introduction to this book, Ott and Uhl situate the usage of the term space into the nineteenth century; however, its application then was usually in the service of a narrative of progress from the areal composition of images to the representation of infinite depth.²⁸⁹ They continue the story of space by arguing that before the nineteenth century, writers such as Lessing distinguished the different arts by their space-time distinction (namely in his famous text Laocoon, or the Limitations of Poetry, published in 1766);²⁹⁰ for Lessing painting is different from poetry, because the former uses figures and colours in space, while poetry articulates tones in time. For the period of time around Circle, Ott and Uhl list a number of other art historians referring to space, such as Erwin Panofsky and his contributions on perspective, Karl Albiker’s notion of space as a tactile and as a visual category; Max Raphael, who titled his book Space Design (Raumgestaltung) (published in 1949); Ernst Cassirer’s conception of space as symbolic form; as well as those mentioned above, like Heinrich Wölfflin’s space as formal element.²⁹¹ Indeed,  See King, The Last Modern. A Life of Herbert Read, 185 – 6. When Hepworth and Nicholson decided to leave London for Cornwall in late August 1939, they lived at Stokes’ house, where Adrian with his wife Margaret Mellis had settled in May 1938.  See Adrian Stokes, ‘Miss Hepworth’s Carving,’ in: Stokes (ed.), The Critical Writings of Adrian Stokes, vol. I, London: Thames and Hudson, 1978 (first published in The Spectator, 3 Nov. 1933, 621), 309 – 10.  See Michaela Ott and Elke Uhl, ‘Vorwort,’ in: Ott and Uhl (eds.), Denken des Raums in Zeiten der Globalisierung, Münster: LIT Verlag, Münster: LIT Verlag, 2005, 8 – 11, 10.  See Michaela Ott, ‘Dimensionen des modernen Raumbegriffs,’ in: Ott and Uhl (eds.), Denken des Raums in Zeiten der Globalisierung, Münster: LIT Verlag, 2005, 12– 23, 19.  Lessing’s text was originally published in German as ‘Laokoon oder über die Grenzen der Malerei und Poesie’.  See Ott, ‘Dimensionen des modernen Raumbegriffs’, 15. For a survey similar to that by Ott, see Johan Frederik Hartle, Der geöffnete Raum. Zur Politik der ästethischen Form, Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2006. See also Dünne, Günzel, Doetsch and Lüdeke (eds.), Raumtheorie. Grundlagentexte aus Philosophie und Kulturwissenschaften. Under the chapter ‘aesthetic spaces’, the editors published texts authored by August Schmarsow, Ernst Cassirer, Max Herrmann, Eric

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space played such an important role that the fourth Congress of Aesthetics and General Science (Kongreß für Ästhetik und Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft) held in Hamburg from 7 to 9 October 1930, stood under the theme ‘Design of Space and Time in Art’ (Gestaltung von Raum und Zeit in der Kunst).²⁹² Although Ott and Uhl list quite a few, they are not comprehensive. For example, they have not referred to Read and also not to other German art historians, such as Hans Jantzen who published the book About the Art Historical Space (Über den kunstgeschichtlichen Raum) in 1932, investigating the role of space as image depth, form, a problem of style and as symbol.²⁹³ Without being able to go into detail, which would highlight a number of conceptions of space further to the constructive one discussed in this book, the number and variety of these books should demonstrate that the discussion of spatial concepts in art in all shades of meaning was prevalent in Britain and on the continent in the first half of the twentieth century.

3.4 Concluding Remarks: Constructive Ideas of Space Despite some differences in the understanding of space between the three contributors to Circle investigated in this chapter in detail and outlined below, it is the differentiation of two principally distinct concepts of space that have come to the fore, namely space as material/physical and space as imagined/represented. In principle, the understanding of space as imagined and as material indicates a distinction with which many were concerned from the nineteenth century onwards. Material space has its roots in the mathematical models that proved

Rohmer and Jurij Lotman, texts which date from 1894 as the earliest to 1970 as the latest. It is a strange anthology, missing out a number of expected authors, mentioned elsewhere under such headings such as Lessing, but also Giedion (and including unexpected others). With this selection, the editors leave the definition of ‘aesthetic spaces’ in the twilight of aesthetics as a discipline in philosophy or as a category subsuming arts including architecture, theatre, film and fine arts (the selection is not explained other than mentioning that the texts concentrate on the twentieth century around 1990, where they located the Spatial Turn; see ibid., 14. They also do not differentiate between literature that identifies space as a topic in art and that which develops a spatial methodology.  This has been researched in detail by Angela Lammert, ‘Raum und Zeit in der Kunst um 1930. Ernst Cassirer, Aby Warburg, Carl Einstein,’ in: Künste Berlin (ed.), Topos RAUM. Die Aktualität des Raumes in den Künsten der Gegenwart, Nuremberg: Verlag für moderne Kunst, 2005, 58 – 71.  See Hans Jantzen, Über den kunstgeschichtlichen Raum, Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1938.

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non-Euclidean geometry. In other words, theories were drawn from objects rather than developed and then represented in models, and thus this also demonstrates why objects, and in our case, art objects are so relevant—because they present rather than represent concepts of space. Constructive space therefore is foremostly characterised by an object that makes space, understood as material space, visible. Such an understanding would define Read’s perceptual space (explained at length in the section above) as distant from constructive space but close in light of the artwork that is seen as a spatial dimension. Apart from its materiality, constructive space is also thought of as not being static. Gabo, Hepworth and Read emphasise the relevance of rhythm as an inner force of sculpture. Gabo calls such sculpture kinetic, but also inserts lines in stones like Hepworth or uses strings in order to show a kind of dynamic— what for Read is interior volume and ponderability. In terms of space, if this is what is in the sculpture, space is therefore understood as dynamic and vibrant, ideas which can be traced back to Bergson, as outlined above. Thus, the constructive idea of space consists of two moments: of space as materiality and of space as dynamic. Such an understanding of space, as shown above, raised issues about the role of form as boundaries of ‘space’, space as material and other materials called ‘mass’ and their relationship to space, and the techniques to make space visible, as outlined in the following. On the question of form, Gabo introduced a differentiation between space as open and as enclosed. Wölfflin spoke about open and closed ‘forms’ of space, which are sometimes also regarded as open and closed composition. In principle, these understandings distinguish an older from a newer tradition. Closed space is concerned with a container-like, self-contained space, following a Kantian idea of space as a priori, as part of the human organising experience that goes before any imagining of space. The contributors to Circle discussed above also see such closed space represented in avant-garde sculpture as the space within the form. Such understanding is different from the newer idea of space, namely a conception of space as open. It is similar to what Wölfflin has called the ‘open form’ in that it points beyond the art work itself, as outlined above. Wölfflin has associated such style particularly with art from the twelfthcentury and that of seventeenth-century painters. While the former was dominated by vertical and horizontal lines, the latter focused on the diagonal.²⁹⁴ Principally similar, the concept of space as open assumes that it points beyond the art work, indeed that the art work makes this space visible. Gabo and Hepworth continue such thinking by introducing not the diagonal, but the volume. In other

 See Wö lfflin, Principles of Art History, 124– 6.

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words, they volumise art, so that constructive sculptors such as Gabo and Hepworth work with three-dimensional spheric forms. Art works that make space visible are understood as changing life, creating a new society: a belief which is proclaimed in the writings of Gabo, Hepworth and Read. These opposing understandings of space as open and enclosed, both part of the constructive idea to make space visible through the object, have not been invented by Gabo or any of the other contributors to Circle. As outlined above, while enclosed space can be traced as a concept steeped in Kant, open space can not only be associated with Wölfflin, but also with Worringer’s empathy theory and with Hildebrand’s act of creativity. Following these various strands brings to the fore a network of associations which demonstrate a vibrancy of such ideas in varying densities in the first half of the twentieth century, rather than only a direct line of influence of certain ideas on certain writers and artists. A concept of space as open is different from negative as well as positive space. While positive space may indicate the space of the object itself, negative space is that which is put into form. This is a distinct difference in emphasis and character between space which is a formal element and part of the art object and space which brings to the fore the form. As shown above, particularly in the section on Hepworth’s concept of space, negative space is actually not part of the art object as positive space (or forms an entirely other object), while open space is not space that defines the form of the object only, but is intriguing to the art work, is, so to speak, the ‘positive space’. Such space is, for Gabo, used and made visible, constructed, in the sense that the art object is an assemblage of various materials, including that of space. He therefore plays with translucent materials, such as nylon an Perspex, and with space as transparent, the latter understood as the revealing of space between strings, between stone and metal. Hepworth also constructs, using, however, only space as transparent. Space can also be made visible through carving. While Gabo prefers construction, Hepworth also takes away mass, material, so that forms and figures become visible as well as space. Such a discussion ties in with the debate on modelling and carving in Britain contemporary to the publication of Circle, as also outlined above. Carving is the technique of making space visible through cutting away, while modelling is more like assemblage, although the process of modelling is not really using space as material. Therefore, the process closer to producing space as open is that of constructing an art work, as described by Gabo and Hepworth. A distinction between open and enclosed space would also affect the terminology used in the analysis of the art work. Pierced forms would be a notion to describe closed space, while open form would apply to open space, as shown above with Hepworth.

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Apart from the concept of space as open and enclosed as well as space as material and dynamic, the contributors to Circle also share to some extent ideas that art works should not reproduce nature. There is a focus on mass and volume in their debates surrounding space. All assume them as different, but Gabo prefers depth over volume and spatial depth over solid mass, and consequently wants to create works with spatial depth rather than solid mass, while Hepworth values space and mass equally, therefore has sculptures that make the interior visible, such as Sculpture with Colour Deep Blue and Red (Fig. 3.12), opening up space, such as The Wave (1943 – 4, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh). Such differences in emphasis are reflected in the types of materials used, such as stone for Hepworth, which also puts an emphasis on the natural rather than the synthetic, and translucent materials including Perspex and nylon. Read, on the other hand, interprets volume as the quality of space, while mass is its quantity. As shown above, not only can the concepts of space be related to each other, but also the art works themselves produced around the time of the publication of Circle. Gabo, Hepworth and Moore produced string sculptures that look visually similar. They used strings, although Gabo preferred translucent material such as nylon and plastic, while Hepworth used natural material, such as yarn, wood and stones, the latter of which Gabo also exploited. While the concluding remarks so far have concentrated on those issues that demonstrate a close association of Hepworth, Moore and Read, there are also aspects that distance them, may these be in the emphasis of volume and mass, of techniques (Gabo and Hepworth) rather than perception and conception (Read) or in vocabulary (open and enclosed by Gabo, touch and sight space by Read). Circle was for Hepworth and Read the publication which stood at the beginning of their concern with such space. For Gabo, he developed the ideas before, but here in a quite explicit way. This means that Circle was instrumental in the development of the concept of space as constructive for the English constructivists. While it was only those three who directly referred to space, other contributions to Circle did also hint at such new concepts. In his essay ‘Art and the Scientist’, Bernal notes that the question of how art can suggest ‘dynamic balance’ without the involvement of actual movement was still unexplored in the ‘psychology of sensation’.²⁹⁵ Though again not referring to space as such,²⁹⁶ the

 John Desmond Bernal, ‘Art and the Scientist,’ in: Gabo et al. (eds.), Circle. International Survey of Constructive Art, London: Faber and Faber, 1937, 119 – 23, 122. See also Robert Burstow’s paper on ‘Hepworth and the Physicist JD Bernal. Constructive art and crystallography’, given

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idea of dynamic balance (with references throughout the essay to sculptures by Gabo and Nicholson reproduced in Circle) illustrates how lively the discussion of the representation of space and time in sculpture must have been at the time of the publication of Circle and relevant for the definition of the constructive idea.

The relevance to a Spatial Art History—tying the nodes While Chapter Two emphasised the planning and publication of Circle as a network, this chapter drew associations between the artistic theories and practices in and around the publication of Circle. The resulting net is one of books and other writings, in which some stand closer to each other and others further away. It is the printed word and the produced art work in their materiality, which become the actors that have been associated with each other. The emphasis was on those things produced by Gabo, Hepworth and Read as those who mentioned space in their contributions to Circle. Principally, however, these associations are open-ended; in other words, one could further investigate how the books, illustrations and art works discussed were received, which would weave the web further. What has also been demonstrated in this chapter is that Circle plays a dominant role in the dissemination of a new concept of space. Despite Gabo having published such ideas before the appearance of Circle, his contribution to it is his most detailed and clearest writing regarding space, and its understanding seems to become even more nuanced when analysed with view of Hepworth and Read. The art works, particularly Gabo’s use of strings and natural material, were closely related to Hepworth as well as Moore. Therefore, ideas formulated in writing and art works bring to light a mutual exchange between several people, rather than being produced by one individual only. Indeed, these things disclose aspects of the social relationships, namely that Gabo, Hepworth and Read were close at the time of planning Circle. Therefore, one can not only describe their relationships with each other, as previous scholarship has undertaken, but also draw conclusions from their art theories and works as to their social relationship. Getting back to Farrell who is mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, it can therefore be said that, indeed, friendships create creativity, aesthetic ideas and artistic practices. This chapter emphasises, however, that it is things which at the Steering Committee seminar for a Barbara Hepworth exhibition, organised by Tate Research, Tate Britain, London, 28 March 2013.  Bernal does also not refer to space in his ‘Foreword,’ in: Hepworth and Bernal (eds.), Catalogue of Sculpture by Barbara Hepworth, London: Alex. Reid & Lefe`vre, Ltd., Oct. 1937, s.p.

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manifest social relationships, including friendships. In terms of networks, one may say that art works and ideas that can be closely associated with each other bring to the fore personal and professional relationships as two kinds of associations that make the net denser. Relationships change, as Farrell argues when he considers the steps of friendship relationships that involve the departure from each other. Likewise, it has been shown in this chapter that the art ideas and practices regarding space of Read, Hepworth and Gabo moved further apart in the years after the publication of Circle. Such a departure from each other may have also contributed to the actual ‘spacing’. Gabo left for the USA in November 1946, preceded by a period of unease within the community to which Gabo, Hepworth and Nicholson belonged.²⁹⁷

 This has been detailed by Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, 306 – 309. Hammer and Lodder discuss a number of reasons for Gabo’s departure, among them being design projects and a planned monograph on his sculpture that failed to materialise (see 310 – 312).

4 Outlook This chapter is termed ‘Outlook’ to remain true to a spatial methodology that conceives of things as relational in an endless net of associations, in which things are transformed, rather than ‘concluding’ in the sense of marking an end as final. A first part will evaluate the methodology of a Spatial Art History, as defined in the Introduction to this book and probed in the preceding two chapters, by considering some gains and pitfalls, asking what it actually brings to the fore that other methodologies have failed to consider yet. A second part will summarise the conclusions on spatial concepts of the 1930s as discussed in Chapter Three, particularly space as open and constructive, and relate these to those associated with the Spatial Turn and then in light of modernism (including modern art), suggesting that concepts of space played an important role in Modernity and the modern project. As such Modernity would not only be characterised by acceleration (i. e. via time) but also by ‘expansion’ (via space).

4.1 Spatial Art History as Spatial Practice under Review The analysis of the book Circle and of the topic of space in constructive art has been approached with a methodology sketched out in the Introduction to this book, where it was termed Spatial Art History. Applying these initial ideas have helped probe, specify and extend such a methodology. In the chapters of this book, space has been understood as ‘spacing’ and applied to describe the relationship that things form with each other, namely art works with other art works, publications and their association with others, but also unpublished material. Indeed, these things, understood as anything that can be exchanged, form spatial configurations themselves, which are produced, performed and transformed, and through this process bring to the fore social relations. Things are to be understood as co-existing, interacting, being connected or consisting of interwoven spaces and thus forming nestlings (layers, also of similar nature, next to each other), pyramidings (hierarchically structured) and interlacings (mingled within each other), all as part of a network in which some are further away and others closer together in an endless mesh of relationality that defies an original point as singular and one-dimensional. Of course, the formal requirements of a publication may bring the endlessness to a finish. However, these are formal matters. The nature of things is thought of as forming further associations, and while this book draws to its ending, it will have the

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possibility of associations beyond its writing, be this through the print version and, hopefully, the reception of it, transforming the ideas of the book. Therefore, one cannot speak of one single art object or thing, but rather of them forming associations with one another. Unlike theories of context but closer to a Bourdieuan ‘cultural field’, understood as a field in which agents and their social positions are located and compete with each other, however, these relationships are seen as forming a network or better, meshwork, a term explained in the Introduction, which acknowledges a kind of ordering as an essential part of these things. This ordering is an activity, seen as a spacing of things as related, closely or further away, allowing to differentiate relationships by distance and density. Moreover, an analysis of these things and their relationships to each other also brings to the fore social relations that can be characterised. Probing the methodology, therefore, Chapter Two showed how an exchange of ideas and interests, documented in writing, led to the planning and production of Circle and its subsequent reception, transforming Circle continuously from ideas to book to reprint and to reviews of Circle. Its analysis brought forward the social relations between editors, contributors, supporters and publishers. These relationships were of professional as well as of personal nature. Chapter Three explored the concepts of space in Circle with an emphasis on space as open, as constructive. It also interpreted art works produced around the time of Circle. In particular the interpretation of the use of strings illuminated that art works, visually closely associated, also produce a multitude of social relations as if to form a clouding. Indeed, these social relations can be characterised not only as personal and professional, but also as a sharing of every-day life that included living and working in proximity to each other, so that an exchange of ideas and artistic practice could be manifold. Indeed, as it seems, the more associations that can be drawn between art works (which leads to a ‘tag clouding’), the more social relations are produced that are characterised by the art work as well as by published and unpublished material which also bring these social relations to the fore. What would be needed in addition to Chapter Three is to show in detail that similar-looking art works and ideas are not only associated with social relations characterised by being geographically close. One example illustrates this in particular. Pevsner’s work reproduced in Circle can be visually and conceptually closely related to those works ‘constructed’ by Gabo at a time when one of the artists lived in Paris and the other in London (and then in Cornwall). Their extensive correspondence at that time brings to the fore that they shared professional (related to artistic), personal (as Pevsner was Gabo’s brother) but not every-day life experiences with each other after Gabo’s move to London. In other words, their relationship can be characterised by a density of associations, similar to that decribed in Chapter Three. The medium hereby is,

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however, not the closeness of place that enables a regular exchange, but the correspondence as well as the art works which allow the forming of a multitude of associations that characterise their relationship. Likewise, what has not been discussed in detail is that things seemingly associated closely with each other may bring to light limited social relations. For example, Katarzyna Kobro, a Russian-born constructivist artist living in Poland who was dedicated to questions about space and time,¹ was not included, even not considered for a contribution to Circle. On the other hand, some artists and art critics with an interest in spatial concepts contributed to Circle but did not write about space in their essay, such as Sigfried Giedion who authored the widely disseminated book Space, Time and Architecture first published in 1941. This means again that their association with space may well be close but do not form a dense net in view of Circle. Nevertheless, there is not no relationship between these and Circle and, therefore, these are mentioned, forming an important part in defining the net of constructive space in terms of density. This shows how a volumised network should be understood, namely by things associated with each other, but these associations will differ in terms of distance and density. There is only no association if there were just one thing that did not communicate or interact at all. This is because things produce social relations as soon as things are exchanged. Each time this happens, things are reshaped, transformed through a spacing that can be characterised in terms of being closer and further away, always operating in a net of connecting points. These things form spatial configurations that can also bring to the fore social relations marked by power, both of personal and professional nature, as demonstrated by the roles in Circle, for example the hierarchical structure between editors and contributors on the one hand, and the power inbalance between men and women and with the publishing-house on the other (see Chapter Two). And again, the ‘construction’ of things, in this case of concepts of space, constructive art works, publications and exhibitions are actors who space things and therefore bring to the fore social relations. In this sense, a Spatial Art History attempts to resist those social (art) histories that perceive of (art) objects as representing or reflecting society, that see society as something into which an art object can be placed, that focus on originality and tradition and the (art) object as singular.  See, for example, Katarzyna Kobro and Władysław Strzemin´ski (eds.), Kompozycja przestrzeni, obliczenia rytmu czasoprzestrzennego, Ło´dz´: Muzeum Sztuki, 1993 (1931), translated recently into English as Katarzyna Kobro and Wladyslaw Strzeminski, ‘Composing Space/Calculating SpaceTime Rhythms,’ October, no. 156, 2016, 12– 74. It was published together with her husband, the Polish painter Władysław Strzemin´ski, a student of Malevich.

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4.1.1 Gains of a Spatial Art History: Reassessing Constructive Art Having suggested what a Spatial Art History aims at in contrast to other methodologies in more general terms in the Introduction to this book, this section will outline the gains of applying it for a particular case in Art History, namely for Constructivism and especially for constructive art. In other words, what does a Spatial Art History provide that other methodologies under which constructive art has been discussed do not? What is new in the analysis above and what does this book really contribute to a narrative of modern art, except for a deeper understanding of the book Circle which has been underresearched so far? Therefore this section will outline the new connections made to the understanding of Constructivism and, what is commonly known as society, art and artist. Firstly, a Spatial Art History allows one to conceive of society not as an abstract term in which the artist needs to be situated, but provides a tighter relationship between ‘society’ and art works, as a Spatial Art History does not preconceive society as framework or context. The methodology assumes not only correlative relationships between things in form of art objects, publications and unpublished material, illustrations and exhibitions and ‘subject’, but argue that these bring to the fore social relations. Unlike stylistic and artist-monographic approaches to Constructivism and constructive art that take their starting-point from Constructivism as a movement or from a particular artist, the analysis here begins with an edited publication that per se suggests a collaborative approach (although scholarship on Circle has tried to identify the book with one idea, as outlined in the Introduction to this book). Its analysis brought to the fore the social relations of those contributing to the publication in text and image, social relations that were marked by hierarchies and gender, by support and exchange, by personal and professional interaction and by some rejection and neglect. While Bann also orders artists, groups and periodicals in his diagram of Constructivism defined within a chart of geographical regions and a timeline, he does so by lines and dots that represent beginnings and endings, cross-referencing and dominance (see Fig. 1.4).² Therefore, he makes not only connections but also considers periodicals in addition to artists, groups and style, an undertaking also followed in this book. Drawing the line further, the methodology of this book deepens the understanding of Circle, which would rather feature more in the middle of the diagram with connections not only to England, USA, the Netherlands, Switzerland and France, but also to Russia and Germany and even further (such as Poland, Czechoslovakia and Spain),

 See Bann (ed.), The Tradition of Constructivism, s.p.

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were one to consider the publications cited in the bibliography of Circle. Thus, the geographical net appears to be wider than Bann’s, while the timeline of this book also spans to periods before 1920, though more in view of concepts of space. Therefore, there is an expansion not only in terms of concepts of space within Constructivism, but particularly of the places where such ideas were publicised. Therefore, in more general terms, the primary gain of a Spatial Art History is not a completely new history of constructive ideas and practices (of course, it was already known that Nicholson, Hepworth and Gabo were particularly close), but it expands insight into the structure of the networks surrounding these ideas and practices, networks considered multidirectional and with varying degrees of density and distance (as in Bann’s diagram). By imagining the network not as a two-dimensional diagram but rather as a volumised three-dimensionality with endless connections, it transform’s Bann’s Constructivism into one in which everything is connected and in which the things explain the social relations, thus forming a tight association between objects and the social. The consequence is that one also considers issues conventionally portrayed as opposites, obscurities and ellipses. Thus Surrealism is not perceived as the opposite of Constructivism but rather as related and as a force that helped actuate the publication of Circle. Furthermore, the consideration of space as a concept and the foregrounding of these concepts being transmitted through published and unpublished material as well as art works are issues that have rather been neglected by previous scholarship on Constructivism that takes their startingpoints from specific artists (e. g. Hammer and Lodder on Gabo, Milner on Tatlin), the style of art works (e. g. Bann, Fer, Batchelor and Wood and Taylor) and the socio-political relevance (e. g. Yablonskaya and Christina Kiaer), as outlined in detail in the Introduction to this book. Therefore, while exploring printed material primarily, constructive art appears not only as a movement of art objects and ideas in the narrow sense but as a complex net of publications through which ideas and art objects were disseminated (‘moved’) rather than only a matter of artists moving, migrating. In terms of Constructivism in the West, it means that constructive ideas moved not only because of Gabo migrating to Britain and being ‘in contact’ with the so-called nest of gentle artists. It also did not only move in one direction, namely from the continent to Britain, but back and forth and further afield, particularly through correspondence and publications. In this respect, a Spatial Art History might not only be applicable to art history and other disciplines that deal with objects but also to those that concentrate on writing.

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4.1.2 Problems of a Spatial Art History: The Issue of Arbitrariness A methodology of a spatial practice is not without problems and limitations. While there may well be many more, there were particularly two that have come up several times in discussions when writing this book; these are the socalled hen-and-egg problem and arbitrariness. The hen-and-egg issue refers to the question as to what is in the beginning. If one assumes that objects can act, what is at or ‘in’ the beginning? What comes first? The object that acts or the human being that creates the object? If one accepts a reciprocal relationship, then it would always be a togetherness; the relationship as such would come first as in relational aesthetics. In other words, an artist would only be an artist when s/he has created an art object, a spectator would only be a spectator, when s/he views an object. Likewise, the ‘object’ would only be such a thing, when created, viewed, and interpreted. In other words, assuming a co-relative relationship as undertaken by relational aesthetics is key to a Spatial Art History and if understood in this sense, one can take the perspective from the thing, but it would always include a human being that transforms the thing. Therefore, the hen-and-egg issue is not really a problem, as the emphasis lies on the ‘and’ in ‘hen-and-egg.’ The issue of arbitrariness is more complex. In view of this book’s topic, one may question why Circle has been chosen to explore constructive space. As outlined above, Gabo had developed his idea of open and enclosed space already in his Realistic Manifesto and realised it in his stereometric figures. Furthermore, space has seemingly not played such a dominant role in Circle, if compared with Russian Constructivism, for example. Therefore, one might ask why Circle has been selected to illustrate the relevance of space in constructive art. Reasons for it include the nature of the publication as an edited volume—with its several essays and many illustrations that would assume collaboration—rather than a single-authored monograph. This would also go for an investigation of the Realistic Manifesto, as it is allegedly written by Gabo and signed by his brother Pevsner and contains thoughts on space. However, it would have then been an analysis with the perspective of a net that looks at 1910s and 1920s Russia. This shows, on the one hand, that an approach of any topic has a dominant side to a net, marked by distances between nodes as well as various levels of density (characterised by the number of nodes being close together). Let me illustrate it with the artwork by Gego, used to illuminate a Spatial Art History as volumised in the Introduction to this book (Fig. 1.1): like the viewers walking around her installation, the net of research, in this case of Constructivism, has different sides depending on where one stands. In light of research, the things (the nodes) and their connections with each other (the steel rods) appear differently,

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depending on the chosen perspective. In relation to this book which centres historically around the 1930s, a book on the concept of space in the Realistic Manifesto would have probably begun even earlier but may have also ended earlier, so the perspective would have been a different one with the appearance of the nodes and connections differently distanced to the researcher. It would therefore have also shown the relevance of space as constructive as the chosen topic and, at some point, also referred to Circle, as associations are assumed endless. The same can be said in terms of geography; while this book’s focus is on Britain, expanding to Europe and the USA, a book on the Realistic Manifesto would have had its focus on Russia. In more general terms, if the methodology favours multidirectional associations rather than a mono-directional history of influence from ‘a’ to ‘b’, it is somehow arbitrary where one begins and which perspective one takes. Therefore, a Spatial Art History makes the object of investigation somewhat random, offering, however, a spectrum for analysis unavailable through methodologies applied to art history so far.

4.2 Relating Spatial Concepts to the Spatial Turn and to Modernism Artists and art critics were concerned with certain spatial concepts in the first half of the twentieth century. While art arguably always relates in some ways to space, there was a more fundamental change with constructive art rooted in Russian Constructivism. Space was not only a formal element anymore, but had something to do with an expansion into another dimension. Although there have been a number of descriptions of this kind of space, Gabo’s dualistic concept of space as enclosed and open seems to hit the nail on its head. It was the open space that was different from a container space—thought of as a continuum that is unbound, constructive, consisting of material constructed (‘assembled’) rather than carved out, and, as an object, being able to impact on the social. Gabo, Hepworth and Read foregrounded the dynamic aspect (with an emphasis on the kinetic), sculptural suspension (Gabo), mass and space (Hepworth) and the phenomenological meaning in terms of perception (Read). These ideas have affinities with those two concepts of space which Linda Dalrymple Henderson has called the curved spaces of non-Euclidean geometry and a so-called fourth dimension of space.³ Unlike the fourth dimension that

 See Linda Dalrymple Henderson, The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art, Princeton, Guildford: Princeton University Press, 1983 and the enlarged version Linda

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suggests reality as a mere shadow of a higher dimensional experience, the focus here is on a space that is made visible through an object, the object that can have an impact on social life. In this respect, associations can be made to those ideas voiced in literature related to the Spatial Turn, anchoring it around Lefebvre’s propositions. The following will therefore first draw connections between constructive ideas of space as explored particularly in the previous chapter, and spatial concepts in literature related to the Spatial Turn and then analyse the significance of concepts of space for modern art and modernism.

4.2.1 Drawing Associations between Spatial Theories of the 1930s and 1980s As already suggested in the Introduction, there are a number of close associations that can be drawn between space as open and constructive on the one hand and literature related to the Spatial Turn on the other. In the latter, exemplified particularly by Lefebvre, space is seen as open and as opening-up in contrast to (en‐)closed space or container space. Furthermore, literature on the Spatial Turn emphasises a spatial understanding of things and content, and therefore, geographical distinctions play a role. It is thus no wonder why the Spatial Turn has been associated with Edward Soja who was a geographer. Further topics are space as dynamic and its relationship to the social. In the latter, however, lies a major difference between concepts of the 1930s, particularly those mentioned in Circle, and the literature of the Spatial Turn that is varied, but here compressed to central ideas. It will be argued in the following that the earlier concepts of space (constructive space) were at the heart of a social commitment: they hailed the creation of a new society. However, this society was thought of as utopian. As outlined in Chapter Three, the book Circle

Dalrymple Henderson, The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art, London, Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2013. See also Tony Robbin, Shadows of Reality. The Fourth Dimension in Relativity, Cubism, and Modern Thought, New Haven&London: Yale University Press, 2006. Linda Dalrymple Henderson has shown in detail that non-Euclidean geometry, together with the so-called ‘fourth dimension’, were widely discussed in art circles of the time in Germany, France and Russia. Following her, Tony Robbin even goes so far as to conclude that by ‘the turn of the century, then, four-dimensional geometry was a fully developed, legitimate mathematical discipline, codified by texts in several languages’ (18). Both argue that, therefore, cubism, particularly Picasso’s work, was influenced by the forerunners of relativity theory. While Dalrymple Henderson lists a vast amount of literature popularizing non-Euclidean geometries in Britain, she does not dedicate a chapter to Britain because, ‘while the fourth dimension was certainly well known in England and Germany, it does not figure prominently […] in literature’ (1983 version, 382– 5).

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aimed at a new life that would be brought about through art. This objective is not untypical for twentieth-century avant-garde movements and has usually been described as utopia, which also describes a certain space, namely an imagined one, a place of ideal perfection. As has been argued by David Ayers and Benedikt Hjartarson in their edited volume on utopia, the utopianism of the avant-garde clearly differs from earlier visions of utopia that were based on notions of continuity and progress. As one commentator has argued, the advent of the avant-garde signified that the ‘time had come for a relentless antagonism between the future and the past; the new, a value in and of itself, could come forth in all its radical purity only from the destruction of the old, in a violent break that would separate the old world from the one that was clamouring to be born.’ Yet the antagonistic notion of utopia, which consists in the contemporary era’s break with the past or the future’s break with the present situation, was only the latest manifestation of a temporalised concept of utopia that can be traced back to the eighteenth century.⁴

They continue by referring to Ernst Bloch, who laid the seeds for Theodor W. Adorno through his book The Spirit of Utopia published in German in 1918, and differentiate the utopian project of the avant-garde as ‘functioning as the driving force of the avant-garde project, whereas this impulse is seen less in terms of Ernst Bloch’s notion of utopia as an impulse “governing everything future-oriented in life and culture”, but rather as the basis of concrete actions and a new aesthetic and cultural praxis.’⁵ Indeed, such aesthetics were thought of as being concrete, as can be shown with Circle. The publication Circle was concerned with art and life, indeed, had a chapter with this title, and proposed a new way of looking at life. One could therefore also attribute to it the word utopia, as, indeed, another world was imagined and the social dreams were not realised to the extent it might have been wished, particularly according to contemporary critics, who were probably the ones who would have liked seeing a much more tangible reference to the socio-political relevance of Circle, as mentioned in Chapter Two (2.3). In this way, Circle also arguably opened up types of spaces in the direction of a utopia if defined in this way. Considering Circle closely, however, one may find not just utopian ideas of society. Indeed, Circle’s contributions expand the concepts of space in art forms rather than in view of society. In other words, the contributions as dis-

 David Ayers, Benedikt Hjartarson, Tomi Huttunen and Harri Veivo, ‘Introduction. New People of a New Life,’ in: Utopia. The Avant-Garde, Modernism and (Im)possible Life, Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2015, 3 – 13, 3.  Ibid., 7.

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cussed in this book formulate concrete types of space in view of art works understood in the widest sense (including architecture and design). In addition, the contributors to Circle provided tangible examples as to how art forms can be associated with (social) life, namely through architecture and other forms discussed under the heading ‘Art and Life’ (probably less in view of painting and sculpture). This motivation was, indeed, opposite to that of, for example German Expressionist artists who—closely related to Nietzsche—believed in creation through destruction. What Circle does not do is directly discuss concrete political or social change, or mobilise such. In this way, one might call Circle’s ambitions utopian, if one takes on the meaning as described by Ayers and Hjartarson, but it is a terminology that is applied from outside, not by the editors of or contributors to Circle themselves; neither does it do justice to the more practical concerns of the contributors who, without necessarily spelling out political and social change, nevertheless focused on certain aspects of the social, namely urban housing and education, to name only two examples from Circle. The literature around the Spatial Turn, on the other hand, has not really been related to utopia in any way. Their theories were also not seen as idealistic or illusory—as were those by constructive artists (despite themselves considering them as concrete and realistic, and space as physical and material)—but rather as a methodology that provides another perspective, particularly if considered in view of and in combination with network theories. Let me illustrate these associations that are rather distant in view of utopia by referring to the title of the book Circle. As a geometrical shape, a circle presumes closeness; or better, it is, indeed, a question of perspective as to whether the circle creates space that is open or encircles space. In other words, space is relative. If the circle as thing stands at the beginning and is thought of as creating the space outside the circle, it leaves space as open and unstructured, while the space encircled is marked by the borders (or better, line of the ‘form’) of the circle. For Gabo, this was open and enclosed space, expressed through constructions and carving, as outlined above. What he did not see was the problem generated when space is thought of as open, namely that it is unstructured. In other words, for later theorists, open, constructive space was thought of as being physical but formally unstructured and spiritual. One may conclude that this was then theorised as structured, namely into geographical or topographical arrangements by human geographers like Soya or into networks by network theorists like Latour, after, and this is the fundamental difference in the idea of space by the Spatial Turn: the space was created (while constructive space assumes space as material that needs to be made visible). Space thought of as structured means that space may less be open towards totalitarian ideas, as is possible with an unstructured limitless and rather spiritually thought space. Hence, the name of the book Circle

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illustrates the difference—in view of structured/unstructured space—between theories of the Spatial Turn and understandings of space by Constructivists and those contributing to Circle. A further aspect in which the spatial concepts of the 1930s and those of the Spatial Turn depart from each other is in the kind of relationship between ‘art and society’ (formulated as such by the former) or ‘thing and social relations’ (as the latter ones would rather call it), a transformation outlined in the following. The Spatial Turn also introduced the study of human geography. In this respect, what Circle has only been able to associate with a rather loose connection between art and social change (called utopian by some as mentioned above), is developed more clearly in spatial methods dealing with the body and with embodiment, ideas that have led to network theories which apply space not to a flat surface but conceive of it as relational, flexible and unstable rather than relative, intransigent and fixed.⁶ While constructive artists of the 1930s already defied flat surfaces, by using spheric forms in their art, and thought of applying a kinetic element, for example, their concept of art and life was not thought of as relational, but rather ‘abstract’, to take Harvey’s explanation on types of relationships on board.⁷ In view of the name of the book Circle, referring to a two-dimensional form rather than to spheres or even networks, evokes a concept of space, as outlined above. Taking these two relationships together, namely that evoked by a circle and that between art and life, seemingly shows a hovering between an understanding of space as abstract and as relative rather than, as assumed in a Spatial Art History as relational. Network theories are neither based on abstract nor relative relationships, but emphasise relationality and therefore would describe the associations between art/object and life from another perspective. For Latour, the network is a flat ontology which seemingly retreats from any differentiation between non-human and humans—both being actors, as outlined in the Introduction. The spatial methodology, as developed in the Introduction and probed in the previous chapters, assumes not only a net volumised because of a multiperspectivity onto and

 See, for example, Barney Warf, ‘From Surfaces to Networks,’ in: Warf and Arias (eds.), The Spatial Turn. Interdisciplinary Perspectives, London: Routledge, 2009, 59 – 76, 72– 6. For a critique on the Spatial Turn, see Marijn Nieuwenhuis and David Crouch (eds.), The Question of Space. Interrogating the Spatial Turn between Disciplines, London: Rowman & Littlefield International, 2017 and its review by Les Roberts, ‘The Question of Space. A Review Essay,’ Humanities, vol. 7, no. 2, 2018, s. p. (online publication, see https://doi.org/10.3390/h7020042).  See David Harvey, Spaces of Global Capitalism / David Harvey, London, New York, NY: Verso, 2006, 121– 6, where he distances absolute, relative and relational space from each other.

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within the net, but also a correlative relationship between ‘thing’ as actor and the ‘social.’ An artist can be seen as an actor who ‘constructs’ an art work in a network of relationships with others, and who relates objects as things to each other (in this role, s/he would still be an ‘actor’). However, without the art work produced, the artist would not be an artist. Furthermore, the thing resonates, forms a relationship with the individual, indeed, also brings to the fore the individual as social being. However, the relationship between things and people is not only correlative, but also relational, as one can form multiple associations. In the language of Circle, this means that art can initiate, bring to the fore and shape life. For spatial theorists, however, ‘art’ and ‘life’ are thought of as ‘things’ and ‘social relations’ in order to relate them closer to thoughts that conceive of ‘art’ as anything that can be exchanged (that move from one to the other), existing not as a singularity, and ‘life’ as consisting of ‘social relations’, both terms stressing the relationality of them in themselves. Space is therefore not viewed as open or closed, but rather as an activity, namely the relating of the thing with the social, termed spacing. While there may well be many more aspects that keep the ideas formulated in the 1930s at a distance to the Spatial Turn in addition to those outlined above —namely unstructured/structured space; open and enclosed space/space as activity; as well as an understanding of space as material (constructive space) as opposed to conceiving of it as inexistent, having to be constructed by actors— they are closely related by a Marxist emphasis on the thing (‘object’) as material. Indeed, Lefebvre can also be associated with Constructivism directly. Meant as a criticism, Lefebvre comments, in his seminal book The Production of Space, on the failures of the ‘Soviet constructivists’ who did not produce a new space, despite their utilitarian approach: ‘“Change life!” “Change Society!” These precepts mean nothing without the production of an appropriate space. A lesson to be learned from the Soviet constructivists of 1920 – 30, and from their failure, is that new social relationships call for a new space, and vice versa.’⁸  Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 59 (originally published as ‘“Changer la vie”, “change la societé”, cela ne veut rien dire s’il n’y a pas production d’un espace approprié. Des constructivistes soviétiques, entre 1920 et 1930 […] persiste cet enseignement: à rapports sociaux nouveaux, espace neuf et réciproquement’ in Henri Lefebvre, La production de l’espace, Paris, 1974, 72). Drawing the biographical associations further, it is interesting to note that both Gabo and Lefebvre lived in Paris in the 1930s, where Lefebvre had close links with artists, particularly the surrealists such as André Breton, due to their common interest in communism (Breton was member of PCF, the French communist party, between 1927 and 1933, while Lefebvre joined in 1928). Lefebvre might have heard of Gabo through Tristan Tzara, who had known Gabo’s brother Antoine Pevsner; Hammer and Lodder cite letters from Pevsner to Gabo written in 1924 and 1925 (see Hammer and Lodder, Constructing Modernity. The Art and Career of Naum

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4.2.1 Why have Concepts of Space as Open Ceased in Art after the 1950s? If concepts of space have played such an important role in the first half of the twentieth century, why did such concepts of space as open become neglected by artists and scholarship until roughly the 1980s, when these were raised again and received a wider reception through literature around the Spatial Turn? This does not mean that space did not play a role in the time in between, but its understanding and use took a different direction as outlined in detail further below in the next section. Two reasons should be mentioned here: first of all, open space has some affinities with the political expansion of space. The closeness of spatial concepts to the territorial expansionist policies of National Socialism, which were motivated by the concept of Lebensraum (‘living space’), and of the Italian Fascists, with their idea of spazio vitale (‘vital space’), which, unlike the Nazis, was not based on genocide but rather on the subjugation of nations under Italian rule in the tradition of ancient Rome,⁹ made further explorations on space unpopular after the war, at least in Europe. Therefore, after the war, it was not really possible to continue to deal with it in Europe. In the USA, not only were artists with concepts of space very successful, such as Naum Gabo, but also art critics, foremostly Clement Greenberg, were able to develop a modernist art critique along the quality of flatness, which is principally a spatial concept.¹⁰ It was only through (Marxist) philosophers and geographers introducing what has become known as the Spatial Turn that the discussion on space began again and which, as mentioned in the introduction, has been used to inform this research. However, then the concepts were also thought differently and anchored differently as shown in the previous section. Furthermore, concepts of space have been overshadowed by literature that formed associations with milestones of science, particularly Relativity Theory,

Gabo, 149 and 408). This was around the time when Lefebvre studied at the Sorbonne and got to know Tzara who became a long-lasting friend, the two men broadcasting together on Radio Toulouse immediately after the war until 1947, when Lefebvre received tenure at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris (CNRS) with the help of Georges Gurvitch, a sociologist exiled from Russia (see Andy Merrifield, Herni Lefebvre. A Critical Introduction, New York, London: Routledge, 2006, 172).  See Davide Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire. Italian Occupation during the Second World War, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, 46.  See Rosalind E. Krauss, Perpetual Inventory, Cambridge, Mass., London: MIT Press, 2010, 114– 28 (‘A View of Modernism’).

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which contributed to looking at the relationship with spacetime and time.¹¹ Indeed, modernism, as also mentioned in the Introduction to this book, is actually a term seemingly more related to time than space. Combined with the close associations with science, the narratives of modernism emphasised rather the new than the old, the avant-garde rather than tradition, terms that have been interpreted in relation to time—assuming them as a before and after, as regressive and progressive—rather than space. This is a particular pitfall in the case of the ‘avant-garde’ (a term that has been related to the French military referring to the advance guard), as noted and accepted widely by art-historical scholarship which treated the avant-garde as an ideology.¹² In light of the impact of nineteenth-century non-Euclidean mathematics as outlined specifically in Chapter Three, it has become clear that artists were inspired by more traditional concepts of space rather than those contemporary to their art production developed particularly in physics. In this regard, the focus on the concepts of space of this book can be understood as a critique of a modernism defined by temporality, or as an alternative narrative of the modern understood in terms of spatiality.

4.2.3 Modernism as Characterised by Expansion The concept of open space has found a number of developments in other disciplines under various names.¹³ It thus seems to hint at a more fundamental issue.

 See, for example, Gavin Parkinson, Surrealism, Art and Modern Science. Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Epistemology. New Haven, Conn., London: Yale University Press, 2008. Unlike approaches such as psychoanalysis, medicine, ethnology, avant-garde and modernist art and literature, he approaches Surrealism by looking at its enthusiasm for modern physics in theory and practice. See also Peter Louis Galison, Caroline A. Jones and Amy Slaton (eds.), Picturing Science Producing Art, New York, London: Routledge, 1998 and Arthur I. Miller, Imagery in Scientific Thought. Creating Twentieth Century Physics, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1986.  See, for example, Paul Wood (ed.), The Challenge of the Avant-Garde, New Haven, CT, London: Yale University Press, 1999, Fred Orton and Griselda Pollock (eds.), Avant-Gardes and Partisans Reviewed, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996 and Griselda Pollock, AvantGarde Gambits 1888-1893. Gender and the Colour of Art History, London: Thames and Hudson, 1992.  For details, see the Introduction of this book, where I have mentioned particularly Jaimey Fisher and Barbara Caroline Mennel (eds.), Spatial Turns. Space, Place, and Mobility in German Literary and Visual Culture. Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 2010 for the subject of German literature and culture. Disciplines as divers as digital technology and city planning have, however, concepts of open space. In terms of art and Art History, the Spatial Turn seems to have been discussed more in scholarship published in German than English. Therefore, the following will refer to such literature.

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Indeed, if one were to use such a methodology for art, one would not only be able to claim with Matthias Flügge that space is a central topic in modern art,¹⁴ but also that Modernity, understood as a period marked by certain norms, structures and characteristics that arose in the wake of western Renaissance, introduced and challenged the concept of container space. To underpin his view that space is central to modern art, Flügge’s edited book Raum (‘Space’) considers modern art as challenging the conception of a container-like space, prevalent since around 1600 and getting disputed particularly during the twentieth century: art techniques, such as montage, collage and assemblage, draw attention to the fragmentation of an understanding of space as enclosed.¹⁵ For Michaela Ott, art works of the second half of the twentieth century, such as the huge installations by Richard Serra or Land Art by Robert Smithson, are suggestions of an expansion of enclosed space and attempts to break away.¹⁶ Following this line of application, one may add that Net Art, exploiting hyperspace regarding hyperlinks or its equivalent the ‘hyper image’ may mobilise a completely new way of realising space. Hence, this recent literature has attempted to show the relevance of modern art with space. However, Modernity, conventionally been more closely related to time rather than space, has been widely accepted as a period of acceleration, of increasing speed, observed in many areas of life such as transport, communication and technology but also in view of art (from prints to photography).¹⁷ If one accepts that spatial concepts play an important role in Modernity, could one not also describe the period of Modernity in terms of space, namely as that of ‘expansion’ in addition to ‘acceleration’? Expansion can be considered as the growth of varying concepts of space. However, open space concepts can also be seen as such an

 See Matthias Flügge, Robert Kudielka and Angela Lammert, ‘Vorwort und Dank,’ in: Flügge et al. (eds.), Raum. Orte der Kunst, exhibition catalogue, Akademie der Künste: Berlin, 23 Feb. to 22 April 2007, 6 – 9, 6. See also other books that related space with modernity, such as Francesco Loriggio, Allegories of Modernity. Space, Time, and the Mediterranean, Toronto: University of Toronto, 2007. Loriggio even describes space as an allegory for modernity in his monograph that concentrates on Giorgio de Chirico.  See Flügge, Kudielka and Lammert, ‘Vorwort und Dank’, 6 – 7.  See Ott, ‘Ästhetik/Kunstgeschichte’, 14– 29. Ott also mentions destination art (see Amy Dempsey, Destination Art, London: Thames & Hudson, 2006) and the situative installations by Dan Graham.  See, for example, Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, epublication: 1935 (in German), but also other disciplines, such as Rosa for sociology, Hartmut Rosa, Alienation and Acceleration. Towards a Critical Theory of Late-Modern Temporality, Malmö: NSU Press, 2010. See also Judy Wajcman and Nigel Dodd (eds.), The Sociology of Speed. Digital, Organizational, and Social Temporalities, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.

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expansion into the infinite and into the spiritual, escalating beyond the container space as shown above. Although this neglects the idea that container space is based on a principally different philosophical concept than open space, the following will briefly examine other disciplines and areas that refer to space and use space in terms of expansion. Such a suggestion can only be shown exemplary in need of a further study that is beyond the limits of this book. However, these ideas will be mentioned here to substantiate the suggestion that Modernity is characterised by expansion as well as by acceleration. The chapters above have shown the expansion of space regarding theories and practices in art. However, cannot the expansionist ideas of the National Socialists and Fascists be considered as an emphasis on space as expansion, particularly with them speaking of ‘living space’ (National Socialism) and ‘vital space’ (Italian Fascism) as mentioned above? And what about the colonial project?¹⁸ Although such understanding needs to be proven in detail, space as expansion does seem to be relevant to Modernity. People living in pre-modern times (including the Middle Ages) also travelled, they conquered and migrated, but it was not on a global scale involving huge numbers. Movement on a larger scale has been closely associated with changes in technology and transport that made such global dimensions possible, but also with ideologies that were used as justifications. In the first half of the twentieth century, there were a number of philosophers who reflected on time as well as on space. Ernst Cassirer, for example, deals with space already in his Philosophy of Symbolic Form published in 1923.¹⁹ According to him, the ‘substantial concept of space’ should be replaced by a concept of form or the assumption of the priority of the concept of order over the concept of being, since it is only with the concept of order that the contradiction between abstract space and concrete localization can be resolved. He therefore replaces substance with relation as outlined in an article first published in 1931: ‘Space and time are not substances but rather “real relations”; they have their true objectivity in the “truth of relation”, not in any kind of absolute reality […]. The world is not defined as an entity of bodies “in” space, nor as an occurrence “in” time, but it is viewed as a “system of occurrences”, of

 See, for example, Peter Hitchcock, The Long Space. Transnationalism and Postcolonial Form. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2010.  See Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, vol. III (The Phenomenology of Knowledge), New Haven, London: Yale University Press and Oxford University Press, 1957 (1923), 142– 161.

4.2 Relating Spatial Concepts to the Spatial Turn and to Modernism

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events.’²⁰ Cassirer sees these systems of events as leading to ‘manifold manifestation of the spatial.’ He continues by explaining how he views space as connection by referring to Leibniz, known for his idea of free choice made from an infinite number of possibilities: ‘That which links all these spaces of different sense character and origin (mythic, aesthetic, and theoretical space) is purely a formal determination which is expressed most clearly in Leibniz’s definition of space as the “possibility of coexistence” and as the order in possible coexistences.’²¹ Such a perspective, which stresses possibilities and space as relational, has led to Cassirer being associated with later developments of relationality that is also relevant to network theories.²² In her book Denken des Raums in den Zeiten der Globalisierung (‘Thinking of space in times of globalization’), Ott mentions a number of spatial concepts, including Edmund Husserl’s perception of things, Martin Heidegger’s space as a product of place, whose surveying allow distance and spaces-in-between and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s emphasis on lived space.²³ These all present a rather varied understanding of space and would need further analysis. Considering concepts of space in other fields than philosophy, as outlined above, in addition to the manifold and varied considerations of space in philosophy may help substantiate that Modernity can be considered as a period which is marked not only by acceleration (in terms of time), but also by expansion (in terms of space).

 See Ernst Cassirer, ‘Mythical, Aesthetic and Theoretical Space (1931),’ Man and World, vol. 2, no. 1, 1969, 3 – 17, 24, 6 – 7.  Ibid., 10.  See, for example, John W. Mohr, ‘Bourdieu’s Relational Method in Theory and in Practice. From Fields and Capitals to Networks and Institutions (and back again),’ in: De´pelteau and Powell (eds.), Applying Relational Sociology. Relations, Networks, and Society, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 101– 35.  See Ott, ‘Dimensionen des modernen Raumbegriffs’, 12 – 23.

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Thistlewood, David, ‘Herbert Read’s Organic Aesthetic II, 1950 – 1968,’ in: Goodway, David (ed.), Herbert Read Reassessed, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1998, 233 – 47 Thoene, Peter (alias Oto Bihalji-Merin), Modern German Art, trans. Charles Fullman, Penguin Books: Harmondsworth, 1938 Thompson, Lara, The Surrealist Exhibition, London: (http://www.luxonline.org.uk/histories/ 1900 - 1949/the_surrealist_exhibition.html) Thomson, Christina, ‘Architektur der Notwendigkeit,’ in: Held, Jutta et al. (eds.), Kunst und Politik. Jahrbuch der Guernica-Gesellschaft, Osnabrück: Universitätsverlag, 2001, 85 – 104 Tickner, Lisa, Modern Life and Modern Subjects. British Art in the Early Twentieth Century, New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2000 Tickner, Lisa and David Peters Corbett (eds.), British Art in the Cultural Field, 1939 – 69, Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012 Todorov, Tzvetan and Arthur Goldhammer, ‘Avant-Gardes & Totalitarianism,’ Daedalus, vol. 136, no. 1, 2007, 51 – 66 Toland, John, ‘Intersections: Henry Moore and Stringed Surfaces,’ in: Intersections. Henry Moore and Stringed Surfaces, exhibition catalogue, London: The Royal Society and the Science Museum, 2012, 3 Treece, Henry (ed.), Herbert Read. An Introduction to his Work, London: Faber & Faber, 1944 Tschichold, Jan, ‘New Typography,’ in: Gabo, Naum et al. (eds.), Circle. International Survey of Constructive Art, London: Faber and Faber, 1937, 249 – 55 Tschichold, Jan, Typographische Gestaltung, Basel: Benno Schwabe & Co, 1935 Tsing, Anna, ‘Worlding the Matsutake Diaspora. Or, Can ANT Experiment with Holism?,’ in: Ton, Otto and Nils Bubandt (eds.), Experiments in Holism. Theory and Practice in Contemporary Anthropology, Chichester, West Sussex; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, 47 – 66 Turner, Sarah Victoria, ‘Henry Moore and Direct Carving: Technique, Concept, Context,’ Henry Moore: Sculptural Process and Public Identity (Tate Research Publication), 2015, s.p.; see https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/henry-moore/sarah-victoria-turnerhenry-moore-and-direct-carving-technique-concept-context-r1151303 Van Ness, Wilhelmina, ‘ART IN AMERICA. The Tragic Dilemma of Modern Art,’ The American Scholar, vol. 43, no. 2, 1974, 288 – 302 Vinzent, Jutta, ‘Challenging the Abstract in Late 1930s Britain,’ in: Mendelson, Jordana (ed.), Encounters with the 1930s, exhibition catalogue, Madrid: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 3 Oct. 2012 to 7 Jan. 2013, 140 – 7 Vinzent, Jutta, Émigré Artists and Their Archives: Naum Gabo and his Contemporaries, 30 Nov. 2009, unpublished, symposium organised by Tate Research, supported by the Getty Foundation and held at Tate Britain Vinzent, Jutta, Identity and Image. Refugee Artists from Nazi Germany in Britain, 1933 – 1945, Weimar: VDG (Verlag und Datenbank fü r Geisteswissenschaften), 2006 Vinzent, Jutta, ‘Space and Form in String Sculptures: Naum Gabo, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore,’ in: Aurenhammer, Hans and Regine Prange (eds.), Das Problem der Form. Interferenzen zwischen moderner Kunst und Kunstwissenschaft, Berlin: Gebrüder Mann Verlag, 2016, 355 – 81 Vinzent, Jutta and Tim Ingold, ‘Representations on the Line. From Lines as Geometrical Form to Lines as Meshwork rather than Network,’ in: Dorsch, Sebastian and Jutta Vinzent

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(eds.), SpatioTemporalities on the Line. Representations—Practices—Dynamics, Berlin/ Boston: De Gruyter, 2017, 13 – 9 Vinzent, Jutta and Christopher M. Wojtulewicz (eds.), Performing Bodies. Time and Space in Meister Eckhart and Taery Kim, Leuven: Peeters, 2016 Wajcman, Judy and Nigel Dodd (eds.), The Sociology of Speed. Digital, Organizational, and Social Temporalities, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017 Walworth, Catherine, Soviet Salvage. Imperial Debris, Revolutionary Reuse, and Russian Constructivism. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017 Warf, Barney, ‘From Surfaces to Networks,’ in: Warf, Barney and Santa Arias (eds.), The Spatial Turn. Interdisciplinary Perspectives, London: Routledge, 2009, 59 – 76 Warf, Barney and Santa Arias (eds.), The Spatial Turn. Interdisciplinary Perspectives, London: Routledge, 2009 Wess, Jane, ‘The History of Mathematical Surface Models,’ in: Intersections: Henry Moore and Stringed Surfaces, exhibition catalogue, London: The Royal Society and the Science Museum, 2012, 7 White, Anthony, Lucio Fontana. Between Utopia and Kitsch, Cambridge, Mass., London: MIT Press, 2011 White, Anthony, ‘Lucio Fontana. Between Utopia and Kitsch,’ Grey Room, vol. 1, no. 5, 2001, 54 – 77 White, Harrison C., Identity and Control. A Structural Theory of Social Action, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992 Wilkinson, Alan G., ‘The 1930s. Constructive Forms and Poetic Sculpture,’ in: Curtis, Penelope (ed.), Barbara Hepworth. A Retrospective, exhibition catalogue, Liverpool: Tate Gallery, 1994, 31 – 69 Wolff, Janet, The Social Production of Art, London: Macmillan, 1981 Wölfflin, Heinrich, ‘Das Problem des Stils in the bildenden Kunst,’ Sitzungsberichte der Königlich preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin), vol. 31, 1912, 572 – 8 Wölfflin, Heinrich, ‘Letter to his sister, Munich, 28 August 1912,’ in: Gantner, Joseph (ed.), Heinrich Wölfflin. 1864 – 1945. Autobiographie, Tagebücher und Briefe, Basel/Stuttgart: Schwabe, 1982, 267 – 8 Wölfflin, Heinrich, ‘Review of Hermann Konnert, Die Kunsttheorie Conrad Fiedlers (Piper: Munich and Leipzig, 1909),’ Repetitorium für Kunstwissenschaft, vol. 33, 1910, 551 – 2 Wö lfflin, Heinrich, Principles of Art History, translated by M. D. Hottinger, London: G. Bell & Sons, 1932 Wöllfflin, Heinrich, ‘Wie man Skulpturen aufnehmen soll?,’ Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst, Leipzig, vol. 26, 1914, 237 – 44 Wood, Paul (ed.), The Challenge of the Avant-Garde, New Haven, CT, London: Yale University Press, 1999 Woodcock, George, Herbert Read. The Stream and the Source, London: Faber & Faber, 1972 Woods, S. John, ‘Henry Moore,’ Axis, vol. 7, Autumn 1936, 28 – 30 Worringer, Wilhelm, Abstraction and Empathy. A Contribution to the Psychology of Style. trans. Michael Bullock, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953 Worringer, Wilhelm, Abstraktion und Einfühlung. Ein Beitrag zur Stilpsychologie, Paderborn, Munich: Fink, 2012 (online version with a critical introduction)

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List of Illustrations Book Cover Naum Gabo, Two Cubes, reproduced in: Naum Gabo, Leslie Martin and Ben Nicholson (eds), Circle. International Survey of Constructive Art, London: Faber and Faber, 1937, 103 © Nina and Graham Williams (Photo © the author, 2019)

Chapter One 1.1

1.2 1.3 1.4

Gego, Reticulárea, 1969, stainless steel wire and aluminium tube, variable measurements (installation photograph), Fundación de Museos Nacionales, Caracas, Venezuela © Fundación Gego (Photo © Paolo Gasparini, 2019) Alfred Barr, Cubism and Abstract Art, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1936, book cover (Photo © the author, 2019) Inventing Abstraction. 1910 – 1925, interactive map (photo © https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/inventingabstraction Stephen Bann (ed.), The Tradition of Constructivism, London: Thames and Hudson, 1974, s.p. © Stephen Bann (Photo © the author, 2019)

Chapter Three 3.1 3.1 A 3.2

3.3

3.3 A

3.4

3.5

Naum Gabo, Two Cubes, reproduced in: Gabo et al. (eds), Circle, London 1937, 103 © Nina and Graham Williams (Photo © the author, 2019) Naum Gabo, Two Cubes, 1930, painted wood, 305x305x305 mm, Tate Collection, London (T02166) © Nina and Graham Williams (Photo © Tate Collection, London, 2019) Naum Gabo, Model of Construction in Space. Stone with a Collar, 1933, location unknown, reproduced in: Gabo et al. (eds), Circle, London 1937, fig. 8 (sculpture section) (date corresponds with that given in Circle 1933) © Nina and Graham Williams (Photo © the author, 2019) Naum Gabo, Kinetic Construction (Standing Wave), c. 1920 (destroyed), with drawing; reproduced in: Gabo et al. (eds), Circle, London 1937, s.p. © Nina and Graham Williams (Photo © the author, 2019) Naum Gabo, Kinetic Construction (Standing Wave), c. 1920 (destroyed), replica, 1985, metal, wood and electrical motor, 616x241x190, Tate Collection, London (T00827) © Nina and Graham Williams (Photo © the Tate Collection, London, 2019) Naum Gabo, Construction in Space C, c. 1920 – 1 (1919 – 21), lost before 30 April 1938 (was given to Miss Katherine S. Dreier, New York in 1922); reproduced in: Gabo et al. (eds), Circle, London 1937, fig. 5 (sculpture section) © Nina and Graham Williams (Photo © the author, 2019) Naum Gabo, Torsion, 1928/9 (1928 – 36), Tate Collection, London (T02171) , reproduced in: Gabo et al. (eds), Circle, London 1937, fig. 7 (sculpture section) © Nina and Graham Williams (Photo © Tate Collection, London, 2019)

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3.5 A

List of Illustrations

Naum Gabo, Torsion, 1928 – 36, Perspex, 352 x 410 x 500 mm, Tate Collection, London (T02146) © Nina and Graham Williams (Photo © Tate Collection, London, 2019) 3.6 Fabre de Lagrange, Hyperbolic Paraboloid, string surface model, 1872. Science Museum, London (10317215) (Photo © Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library, 2019) 3.7 Naum Gabo, Linear Construction in Space No. 1, 1942 – 3, Perspex with nylon monofilament, 349x349x89 mm, Tate Collection, London (T00191) © Nina and Graham Williams (Photo © Tate Collection, London, 2019) 3.8 Fabre de Lagrange, String Surface Model. Geometric Groin Vault, 1872, Science Museum, London (1872 – 129) (Photo © Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library, 2019) 3.9 Henry Moore, The Bride, 1939 – 40, cast lead and copper wire, 238 x 103 x 100 mm, The Museum of Modern Art Collection, New York (15.1947) © The Henry Moore Foundation (Photo: © The Museum of Modern Art/SCALA, Florence, 2019) 3.10 A Henry Moore, Sculpture, 1935, reproduced in: Gabo et al. (eds), Circle, London 1937, fig. 9 (sculpture section) Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London (Photo © the author, 2019) 3.10 B Henry Moore, Sculpture, 1935, reproduced in: Gabo et al. (eds), Circle, London 1937, fig. 10 (sculpture section) © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London, 2019 (Photo © the author, 2019) 3.10 C Henry Moore, Sculpture, 1935, marble, 37.5x56x27.9 cm, The Art Institute Chicago, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Joel Starrels, The Art Institute Chicago (1960.861) © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London, 2019 (Photo © the author, 2019) 3.11 Fabre de Lagrange, String Surface Model. Staircase Vault, string surface model, 1872, Science Museum, London (1872 – 119) (Photo © Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library, 2019) 3.12 Barbara Hepworth, Sculpture with Colour Deep Blue and Red, 1940, cast material, mixed media including red strings, 105 x 149 x 105 mm, Tate Collection, London (T03133) © Bowness, Hepworth Estate (Photo © Tate Collection, London, 2019) 3.13 Barbara Hepworth, Orpheus (Marquette 2) (Version II), 1956, edition 1959, brass and cotton string, 1149 x 432 x 415 mm, Tate Collection (T00955) © Bowness, Hepworth Estate (Photo © Tate Collection, London, 2019) 3.14 Barbara Hepworth, Sculpture (also titled Carving in White Marble), reproduced in: Gabo et al. (eds), Circle, London 1937, fig. 5b (at the end of the sculpture section); the work is not mentioned in the catalogue raisonné (see http://barbarahepworth. org.uk/catalogue/) © Bowness, Hepworth Estate (Photo © the author, 2019) 3.15 Barbara Hepworth, Hepworth 1936 (now known as Monumental Stele), destroyed in the war (ID no. BH 83), reproduced in: Gabo et al. (eds), Circle, London 1937, fig. 2 (sculpture section) © Bowness, Hepworth Estate (Photo © the author, 2019) 3.16 Barbara Hepworth, Pierced Form, 1932, pink alabaster, destroyed in the war (ID no. 35), see http://barbarahepworth.org.uk/catalogue/ © Bowness, Hepworth Estate (Photo © http://barbarahepworth.org.uk/catalogue, 2019)

Index Aalto, Alvar 55 – 57, 67, 78, 81, 162 Abstract and Concrete 41, 76, 80 Abstract art 2 f., 4, 6, 9, 11, 28 f., 35, 44, 48 f., 50 (abstract and constructivist), 51, 54 f., 59, 69 (abstract and concrete), 73, 76, 79 – 81, 85, 88, 91 f., 94 f., 106, 111, 136, 139 f., 143, 148, 150, 173 f. Abstract Expressionism, Abstract Expressionists 17 Abstraction 6 f., 29 f., 46, 48, 54, 77, 95, 135, 148 – 150, 167, 172 – 174 Abstraction – Création (as association and periodical) 81, 134 Acceleration 187, 201 – 203 Actor-network theory. See also Networks and Spatial Art History 12, 19 – 21, 29 Adorno, Theodor W. 195 Aesthetic perception. See Read and Perception Agar, Eileen 44 Agency 15, 20, 23 Ainsworth Means, Philip 68 Albiker, Karl 17, 180 Anarchism. See also Read 36, 83, 147, 151 f., 163 Archipenko, Alexander 113 Architectural Review. See also Richards 58, 66, 68, 72 f., 80 Architecture. See also L’Architecture d’Aujourdhui and L’Architecture Vivante, MARS group and Modern Housing 3, 5 f., 10 f., 14, 17, 32, 38 – 40, 42, 46, 51 f., 54, 57 – 59, 61, 63, 65, 67 f., 71 – 82, 85, 88 f., 92, 95, 136 f., 141, 151, 162, 168 f., 171, 179, 181, 189, 196 – Architects 2, 39, 41 f., 52, 55 – 57, 59 – 61, 63, 67 – 69, 72, 75 – 78, 81, 84, 90 f., 95, 135 – Architecture and urban space 11, 14, 58, 196 Arnheim, Rudolf 82 Arp, Hans 46, 76, 155, 160, 171

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110595338-008

Art and life. See also Circle and Vitality, vital 3, 39, 47, 71, 74, 76, 78 f., 81, 91, 145, 195 – 197 Art Concret 54 Art education 39, 57, 64, 79, 95, 152, 162, 171, 196 Arte Surrealista 73 Artists’ International Association 45 f. Art movements 3, 5, 8, 23, 34 f., 44, 85, 93, 100, 195 Assemblage 22, 29, 107, 144, 183, 201 Avant-garde, avant-gardists 1 f., 4, 11, 16 f., 56, 73, 79 f., 90 f., 111, 182, 195, 200 Axis. See also Evans 4, 9, 49 – 51, 57, 62, 72, 85, 116, 136, 138 – 140, 142, 169 Barr, Alfred 28 f., 34, 56, 78 – 81, 84 Bauer, Catherine 80 Bauhaus 2, 4, 40, 55 – 57, 75, 82, 84, 91, 106, 151, 154 f., 162, 171 Bayer, Herbert 162 Berenson, Bernard 179 Bergson, Henri 109 – 112, 129, 132, 136, 142, 172, 174, 177 f., 182 Berlin – School of Experimental Psychology 106 – The First Russian Art Exhibition 56 Bernal, John Desmond 76, 88, 184 f. Bjerke-Petersen, Vilh. 43 Bloch, Ernst 195 Bloomsbury Group 96 Blunt, Anthony 46, 163 Bolyai, János 105 Bonnard, Pierre 90 Borkenau, Franz 83 Brâncuşi, Constantin 43, 46, 76, 118, 142 Brangwyn, Frank 88 Braque, Georges 76, 90 Breton, André 43 f., 47, 198 Breuer, Marcel 1, 6, 49, 54, 57 – 59, 62 f., 65 – 67, 71, 73, 78 f., 86, 93 Brinton Lee, Diana 43

226

Index

Britain. See also Dudley, Hull, London, Stonehenge and Dunstable 2 – 6, 8 – 10, 12 f., 33, 36, 38 – 40, 42, 44 – 47, 49 – 51, 55, 63 f., 71, 76, 78, 85, 87, 134, 154 f., 163, 181, 183, 185, 191, 193 f. – British art 7 – 11, 39, 149, 164 Bürger, Peter 79 Burliuk, David 6 Cahier d’Art 47, 77 Calder, Alexander 46, 68, 142 Canaries, Canary Islands. See also Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Spain 73 Carving, carvings. See also Hepworth and Moore 10, 47, 68, 95, 97 f., 100 – 102, 110, 112, 114, 118, 120 f., 127 – 135, 137 – 145, 165, 169, 179 f., 183, 196 Cassirer, Ernst 14, 17, 159, 180 f., 202 f. Cézanne, Paul 90 Chermayeff, Serge Ivan 162 Chirico, Giorgio de 75, 201 Chmielewski, Jan 67 Choreography 79, 171 CIAM (Congrès internationaux d’architecture moderne). See also GATEPAC 57, 67, 77 f., 81 Cinema. See also Film 73 Circle 1 – 4, 6 – 10, 12, 21 f., 26, 28, 32 f., 35 f., 38 – 44, 46 – 55, 57 – 76, 78 – 93, 95 – 98, 100 f., 104 f., 110 – 121, 125, 127 – 130, 133 – 140, 142 – 146, 148 – 153, 156 f., 162 – 164, 168 – 171, 175, 178 – 198 – Advertisement 54, 60, 72, 74 – Circulars 54 – Facsimile 91 f. – Leaflet 53 f. – Marketing of Circle 38, 53 – 55, 93 – Planning 33, 35, 38 – 40, 49 – 53, 60, 63, 71, 74 – 81, 84 f., 92 f., 95, 146, 185, 188 – Publishers. See also Faber and Faber and Mare 22, 33, 36, 39 f., 54, 82 – 84, 188 – Sales figures 87 Clair, René 16, 33, 79 f. Cluster analysis 31 Codex Atlanticus 75 Collection L’Institut Henri Poincaré, Paris. See Paris

Communism 4, 36, 83, 147, 198 Concrete, concrete art. See also Art Concret and Abstract and Concrete 5, 33, 46, 50, 65, 69 f., 88, 95, 101 f., 106, 109, 112, 116, 127, 130, 158, 160, 176, 178, 195 f., 202 – Concrete art and abstract art 50, 69, 88 Connell, Lucas. See also Art Concret 78 Constructing, constructions 4, 7 – 9, 16, 18, 32, 44, 50, 56, 77, 81, 84 f., 90, 96 – 98, 101, 103 – 105, 109 f., 112 f., 116 – 118, 120 f., 125, 130, 134, 140, 144 f., 154, 160, 166, 168 – 171, 179, 183, 186, 196, 198 Constructive art 1 – 3, 11, 16, 21, 34 f., 37 – 39, 44 – 51, 53, 59, 61, 69, 71, 73, 78, 80, 85, 87 – 89, 91 – 94, 98 – 100, 127, 158, 167, 170 f., 178, 184, 187, 189 – 193 – Constructive art and concrete art 5, 50 – Constructive art and constructivist art 5, 50, 168 – Constructive artists 36, 44, 56, 183, 196 f. Constructive idea 35, 38 f., 69, 72, 74, 76 f., 79 – 81, 85, 92, 95, 97 f., 100 f., 105, 112, 118, 128, 130, 133, 137, 141, 162, 168, 180 – 183, 185, 191, 194 Constructive space (ideas of). See Space Constructivism 2 – 7, 10 f., 21, 32 – 34, 36 – 38, 42 f., 46, 50, 56, 76, 84, 90, 93 f., 105, 110 f., 118, 134, 149, 160, 168, 190 – 193, 198 – Constructivist art 1, 3, 5 f., 33 f., 168 – Constructivists 4 – 7, 12, 16, 35, 39, 50, 55 f., 67, 84, 91, 148, 168, 171, 184, 189, 197 f. Cubism, Cubists 3, 6, 28 f., 75, 80, 85, 88, 113, 194 Cultural field (Pierre Bourdieu) 3, 8, 188 Czechoslovakia 55, 190 Dacre, Winifred 64, 74 f., 98, 110 Dalí, Salvador 43, 45 Davies, Hugh Sykes 43, 45 Delaunay, Robert 81 Design, designers. See also Furniture, Graphic Design, Handicraft and Typogra-

Index

phy 5, 9, 32, 49, 52, 55 f., 62, 69, 98, 135, 151 f., 162 f., 171, 180 f., 186, 196 De Stijl 4, 55 f., 81, 84 Dewey, John 15, 41 f. Doesburg, Theo van 54, 69 Domela, César 85 Drake, Lindsay 63 Duchamp, Marcel 43, 46, 54, 76, 115 f. Dudley (near Birmingham) 63 Dunstable (Whipsnade Zoo) 63 Dürer, Albrecht 108 Educational Year Book. See also Percy 62 Eesteren, Cornelis van 56, 84 Einstein, Albert 13, 75 Einstein, Carl 75, 181 Eisenstein, Sergei 79 f. Eliot, T. S. 82 f. Éluard, Paul 43 f. Emigration, refugees, émigrés, migrants 3, 5, 8, 40, 147, 163 Emotions, emotional. See also Intuition 48, 77, 90, 106, 140, 142, 148 – 150, 154, 157, 160, 164, 173 Empathy. See also Emotions, emotional 106, 172 – 174, 176 f., 183 England. See also Britain 6, 11, 38 f., 172, 190, 194 – English art. See also British art 8, 146 Erni, Hans 55, 76 Ernst, Max 43, 202 f. Euston School 39 Evans, Myfanwy 139 f. Expansion. See also Space 96, 187, 191, 193, 199 – 203 Expressionism, Expressionists 75, 196 Faber and Faber (publishing-house) 1, 12, 40, 47 f., 53 f., 61, 69, 82 f., 85 – 87, 91, 98, 127, 146, 151, 162, 164, 171, 175, 179, 184 Faber, Toby 40, 82 – 84, 146 f., 161, 174 Fascism 31, 47, 199, 202 Fiedler, Conrad 106 – 108, 172, 174 f., 177 f. Film. See also Cinema 5, 14, 79, 109, 181 Finland 55 Formalism 12, 17 f., 90, 134

227

France. See also Paris 39, 43, 55 f., 64, 80, 85, 87, 93, 122, 190, 194 Franklin, Miriam 118, 135 Freud, Sigmund 15 Fry, Maxwell 1, 49, 54, 57, 61, 77 f. Fry, Roger 141 Functionalism 5, 36 f., 55 Furniture. See also Design, designers 8, 38, 62 f., 79 Futurism, Futurists 3, 110 Gabo, Miriam. See Franklin Gabo, Naum. See also Sphere, spheric and Volume 1 f., 5 f., 8, 16, 32 f., 36, 38, 41 – 44, 47 – 57, 59 – 61, 65, 67, 69, 72, 74 – 76, 78, 80 f., 84 f., 88, 90 – 92, 95 – 122, 124 f., 127 – 136, 139 – 146, 148 – 150, 152, 154, 157, 159 f., 163 – 172, 178 f., 182 – 186, 188, 191 – 193, 196, 198 f. – Circle, Editor of Circle 41, 49, 52 – 55, 67 f., 72, 76, 84, 90 – Constructions 47, 95, 97 f., 100 – 103, 105, 107, 109 – 121, 124 f., 128, 133, 141, 144 f., 166 – 170, 179, 183, 196 – Gabo and Carving 47, 95, 97 f., 100 – 102, 110, 112, 114, 120 f., 127 – 133, 141, 169, 179, 183, 196 – Gabo and Constructivism 50 – Mass 98 – 103, 105 – 108, 112 f., 119, 121, 127, 130, 141, 144 f., 157, 166, 179, 182 – 184 – Space 36, 48, 56, 95, 97 – 125, 127, 130, 140 f., 144 f. – Stereometry, stereometric 101, 103, 105, 112 f., 119, 133, 169, 192 – String Sculpture 36, 110 – 113, 120 – 125, 127, 130, 132 – 134, 182 – 185, Gaceta de Arte. See also Westerdahl 64, 72 f., 75, 80 – Gaceta de Arte and Space 73 Gallatin, Albert Eugene 53 f., 118 Gallery of Living Art, New York. See New, York, Gallery of Living Art Garden City of the Future 65, 69 Gardiner, Margaret 41 Gascoyne, David 43 f., 47, 146 GATEPAC. See also CIAM 78

228

Index

Gego 26 f., 192 Geography, geographical 1 f., 10 f., 13 f., 24, 34, 40, 93, 190 f., 193 f., 196 – Human geography 13, 197 Geometry, geometrical. See also Non-Euclidean geometry and Stereometry 5, 12, 26, 28, 69, 89 – 91, 100, 104 f., 110, 112 f., 122, 125, 134, 142, 166, 173, 194, 196 – Geometric abstraction 6 Germany. See also Berlin 9, 31, 55, 64, 90 f., 122, 163, 171, 190, 194 Gestalt psychology 106 Giacometti, Alberto 43, 46, 76, 142 Gibson, William 88 Giedion, Sigfried 1, 10 f., 49, 58 f., 61, 65, 67, 72, 77, 81, 85, 88, 95, 181, 189 Giedion-Welcker, Carola 12, 67 f., 118 Ginzburg, Moisei 56, 84 Goldhammer, Arthur 90 Gorin, Jean 56, 81 Graphic design. See also Design, designers 5 Gray, Nicholette 59, 76, 83 Greenberg, Clement 16 f., 199 Gropius, Walter 2, 6, 49, 51, 54 f., 59 f., 62, 64, 66 f., 72, 74, 77 f., 81 – 83, 171 Group dynamics 96 Groupe Espace (English group of) 6

– Mass 136 – 145, 166, 183 f., 193 – Piercing 135, 142 – 145, 184 – Space 132 – 145 – String Sculpture 36, 121 f., 130 – 134 Hildebrand, Adolf von 106 f., 141, 147, 155, 168, 172, 174, 176 – 178, 183 Hildebrandt, Hans 56, 74 Hodgson, John Lawrence 78 f. Hogarth, William 161 Holding, Eileen 21, 142, 156 Holmes, Charles 88 Honzík, Karel 57, 64, 67, 69, 78 Hugnet, Georges 43 Hull 49, 51, 58 f., 61, 64 – 66, 68, 71 f., 86 Hungary 6, 75 Husserl, Edmund 13, 203 Hyperbolic forms, hyperbolic geometry. See also Gabo, constructions 105, 122 f.

Handicraft. See also Design, designers 60 Havlíček, Josef 55 – 57, 67, 78 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 150 Heidegger, Martin 13, 203 Hélion, Jean 54 f., 59 f., 76, 85 Hepworth, Barbara 2, 6, 8, 10, 33, 36, 41, 43 f., 47 f., 51 – 55, 57, 67, 76, 84 f., 88, 90 f., 95, 97, 112, 120 – 122, 130 – 148, 157, 163 – 167, 169, 171 f., 178 – 180, 182 – 186, 191, 193 – Carving and Carvings 10, 121, 131 – 135, 137 – 145, 165, 180, 183 – Constructions 133 – 136, 140 – 145, 166, 171, 179, 183 – Circle, Contributions to editing Circle 41, 43, 51 – 55, 67, 76, 84 f., 88, 90 – Circle, Permanent Contributor 55

Jackson, Arthur 9, 54, 59, 76, 126 Jantzen, Hans 181 Jeanneret, Pierre 55, 68 Jennings, Humphrey 43, 46

Industrial Revolution 59, 89 Installation art 3 International, internationality 1 f., 33, 35, 42 f., 45 – 49, 51, 53, 59, 61, 66 f., 69, 72, 78, 83, 85, 98, 127, 162, 184, 197 – International Style 55 Intersubjectivity, intersubjective 27, 33 Intuition, intuitive 104, 110 f., 136, 142, 145, 158, 166, 169, 174 f., 177 Italian Renaissance 108

Kalivoda, František 72 Kállai, Ernst 56, 75 Kandinsky, Wassily 76, 85, 154, 171 Kant, Immanuel. See also Space, Kantian a priori space 13 f., 103 – 105, 107 – 109, 127, 150, 183 Kineticism, kinetic. See also Rhythm 44, 98, 110 f., 113 – 116, 118, 127, 132, 182, 193, 197 Klee, Paul 6, 11, 43, 46, 68, 76, 171 Kobro, Katarzyna 189

Index

Lagrange, Fabre de 122 – 125, 127, 130 – 132 L’Architecture d’Aujourdhui 68 L’Architecture Vivante 80 Lasdun, Denys 63 Le Corbusier 1, 55, 62, 68, 70, 77 f., 88 – 91, 146 Lee, Rupert 43, 46 Lefebvre, Henri 1, 13 f., 20, 28, 194, 198 f. Léger, Fernand 85 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 13, 203 Lissitzky, Lazar Markovich (also El Lissitzky) 54, 56, 68, 76, 81 Lobachevsky, Nikolai 105 Loghem, Johannes Bernardus van 67 London – Hampstead 9, 39, 51 f., 66, 71 f., 86, 96, 134 f. – London Gallery 89, 91, 116 – Mall Studios 51, 96, 134 – Mayor Gallery 68 – New Burlington Galleries 42 f., 92, 163 – Science Museum 121 – 123, 125, 131, 134 f. Lubetkin, Berthold 49, 56, 62 f., 68 f., 71 f., 78, 86 Ludwig, Margaret 82, 103, 108 Lurçat, André 56 Machine, Machine Age 42, 59 – 62, 88 f., 116 Magritte, René 43 Maillart, Robert 10, 49, 61, 65, 68, 78, 86, 88 Maillol, Aristide 155 Malevich, Kazimir 54, 56, 189 Malta 2 Manifesto 4, 6, 39, 47, 50, 81, 91, 99, 101, 110, 113, 169 f., 192 f. Mare, Richard de la 82 f., 87 MARS group 46, 92 Martin, Leslie 1 f., 6, 38 – 42, 49, 5059 – 69, 71, 73, 76 – 78, 80, 82 – 87, 91 f., 105, 166, 168 – 171 Martin, Sadie See Speight Marxism, Marxists 36 f., 147, 163, 198 f. Marx, Karl 15, 45, 103, 163 Masaccio 158 Massine, Léonide 55, 79

229

Masson, André 47 f. Material culture. See also Things 12 Mathematics, mathematical 11, 14, 75, 103 – 105, 110, 113, 122 f., 127, 170, 181, 194, 200 Matisse, Henri 90 Mayor Gallery, London. See London Medunetsky, Konstantin 67, 142 Mendelsohn, Erich 57 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 13, 203 Mesens, Edouard Léon Théodore 43 Middle Ages 59, 159, 202 Miró, Joan 43 Modelling. See also Moore and Stokes 121, 127 f., 179, 183 Modern art 2, 7 f., 14, 16 f., 29, 32, 36, 38, 40, 42 f., 90 f., 93, 148, 152, 156, 160, 164, 167, 171 f., 184, 187, 190, 193 f., 201 Modern housing 78, 80 Modernism 1, 3, 5 – 8, 10, 17, 31, 37, 39, 63, 70 f., 73, 82, 89, 96, 111, 148, 187, 193 – 195, 199 f. – Modernism in Britain 10 – Modernist 3, 6 f., 10, 17, 39, 199 f., 209 Modernity 7 f., 10, 18, 22, 155, 187, 201 – 203 Modern sculpture see also Sculpture 3, 34, 56, 68, 99, 127, 135, 164 Moholy-Nagy, László 1, 54, 72 f., 76, 79, 95, 139 f., 154 f. Mondrian, Piet 1 f., 8, 10, 33, 49, 52, 54 f., 57 – 59, 64 – 66, 74, 76, 146, 160 Moore, Henry. See also Modelling and Carving, carvings 1 f., 6, 8, 33, 42 f., 46, 59, 70, 76, 112, 121 – 123, 125 – 130, 133 – 135, 139 f., 142 f., 147 f., 150, 156 f., 164, 171 f., 175, 184 f. Morley, Frank. See also Faber and Faber 63, 82 Morris, William 46, 88 Moscow. See also Russia, Russian 7, 75, 87, 90 Müller, Arthur 56, 154 Mumford, Lewis. See also Monument 54, 57 – 62, 78 f., 82 Museum of Living Art, New York. See New York

230

Index

Museum of Modern Art, New York. See New York Music 19 f., 73, 100 Nash, Paul 39, 43 f., 46, 88, 96, 110, 134, 147, 171 National Socialism 3, 9, 31, 40, 147, 163, 199, 202 Negotiations 22, 36, 50, 63, 74, 92 Nelson, Paul 55, 59, 76, 78 Neokantianism 103, 109 Neoplasticism 84 Ness, Wilhelmina van 90 Nest of gentle artists 9, 39, 96, 146, 191 Net Art 201 Netherlands 55, 190 Networks 1, 3, 19 – 22, 26, 29, 31, 33, 40, 62, 133, 186, 191, 196 f., 203 – Clouds 25, 84 f., 97, 188 – Entangled 2, 110, 157 – Geographical 11, 24, 93, 194, 196 – Mapping 11, 24 f., 30 f. – Meshwork 26, 188 – Network theories. See also Actor-network theory and Spatial Art History 1, 12, 18 – 21, 29, 32, 40, 196 f., 203 – Snowball sampling 93 Neutra, Richard 49, 56 f., 71, 77 f., 85 New Burlington Galleries, London. See London New Statesman 87, 89 New York 3, 5, 12 – 15, 28 f., 36, 43, 53 – 55, 66, 80, 87, 98, 110 f., 116, 118, 126, 151, 154, 160 f., 165 – 167, 171 f., 174 f., 197, 199 f., 203 – Gallery of Living Art and Museum of Living Art 53 f., 80, 118 – Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) 28 f., 43, 55, 98, 126, 154, 167, 172 Nicholson, Ben 1 f., 6, 8, 10, 33, 40 – 43, 48 f., 51 – 57 – 60, 65, 68, 72 – 74, 76, 78, 84 f., 88, 90 – 92, 95, 97, 134, 140 f., 146 f., 164 – 167, 171 – 173, 180, 185 f., 191 Nicholson, Christopher 78 Nicholson, Winifred. See Dacre Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm 196

Non-Euclidean geometry 182, 193 f.

103, 105, 122, 134,

Oppenheim, Meret 43 Oud, Jacobus Johannes Pieter

77

Paalen, Wolfgang 43 f. Paintings 17, 70, 88, 105, 140, 153, 156, 166, 169 f., 173, 179 – Chinese painting 47 f. – Light Painting 79 – Painters 19, 55, 69, 76, 182 Panofsky, Erwin 14, 17, 180 Paris – Collection L’Institut Henri Poincaré 125 Pasmore, Victor 6, 11 Pennell, Joseph 88 Penrose, Roland 43 f., 46 Perception, perceptual. See also Aesthetic perception and Read 36 f., 47, 60, 99, 104 – 107, 116, 125, 133 f., 146 f., 149 – 159, 166, 168, 173, 175 – 178, 182, 184, 193, 203 – Perception theory 32, 106, 173 Percy, Eustace 62 Perspex, Plexiglas 110, 113, 118 – 121, 130, 133, 142, 145, 183 f. – Plastic (material) 113, 117 f. 170, 184 Pevsner, Alexei 109 Pevsner, Antoine 50, 54 f., 59, 76, 81, 98 f., 113, 142, 160, 164, 167, 172, 188, 192, 198 Pevsner, Nicolas 73, 82 Photography 70, 79, 109 f., 154, 201 Picabia, Francis 43 Picasso, Pablo 43, 46, 76, 90, 113, 163, 194 Piper, John 38, 85, 140 Plastic (material). See Perspex Plastique 72 Plato 78 f. Poland 2, 189 f. Ray, Man 43, 116, 146 Read, Herbert. See also Anarchism 1, 5, 9, 14, 16, 33, 36 f., 39, 43 – 48, 55, 58 – 62, 64 f., 72, 74, 77 – 80, 82 f., 86, 88 – 90,

Index

95 – 98, 105 f., 109, 113, 127 f., 134 – 138, 140 f., 143, 146 – 186, 193 – Circle and Read 55, 58, 80 – Circle, Essay and quotations in Circle 74, 77, 78 f. – Circle, Permanent Contributor 59, 146 – Faber and Faber 82 f. – International Surrealist Exhibition 43 – 48 – Mass 149, 151 – 153, 155 – 157, 166, 184 – Perceptual space, aesthetic perception, perception 146 – 159, 166, 168, 173, 175 – 178 184, 193 – Ponderability 147, 153 – 156, 178, 182 – Sight-space, touch-space 154 f. – Space and emotion 48, 150 f., 153, 157, 173 – Space consciousness, space perception 157 – 159 – ‘Space shyness’ 153, 177 – Superrealism, Superrealists 48, 148 f., 161 Realism, Realistic art 36, 39, 46, 50, 90, 160, 167, 172 Réalités nouvelles 81 Reality 25, 36, 45, 53, 70, 106, 110, 143, 158, 160, 166, 168, 175, 194, 202 – New reality 36, 69, 100, 160, 170 f. Relational, relationality 16, 18, 24 f., 27, 33, 94, 104, 187, 192, 197 f., 203 Relativity Theory 194, 199 Rembrandt, Harmenszoon van Rijn 29, 108 Renaissance. See also Italian Renaissance 108, 158, 201 Revolution, revolutionary 4 – 7, 18, 45, 47, 163 Rhythm. See also Gabo, Hepworth and Kineticism 109 f., 113, 137, 165, 170, 182, 189 Richards, James Maude 58 f., 61 f., 71, 73, 77, 80, 85 Ridler, Candida 43 f. Riegl, Alois 153 – 155 Riemann, Bernhard 105 Rietveld, Gerrit 56, 84 Robertson, Alexander 42 Rodin, Auguste 156 Rohe, Mies van der 162 Roll, Erich 64

231

Roth, Alfred 49, 55, 78 Rouault, Georges 90 Rubens, Peter Paul 108 Russia, Russian. See also Moscow and Soviet Union 4 – 7, 21, 36 f., 50, 55 – 57, 63 f., 84, 87, 90, 104, 111, 118, 169, 189 f., 192 – 194, 199 Samuel, Godfrey 63 Santa Cruz de Tenerife 72 f. Sartoris, Alberto 57, 64, 75, 78, 81 Scandinavia 2, 43 Schmarsow, August 14, 179 f. School of Experimental Psychology, Berlin. See Berlin Science Museum, London. See London Science, scientific 11, 18, 20, 39, 75, 89, 96, 99, 103 – 105, 112 f., 135, 140, 175, 181, 199 f. Sculpture. See also Modern Sculpture 5 – 8, 10 – 12, 17, 32, 34 – 36, 42, 44, 46 f., 49 – 52, 54, 56, 67 f., 70 f., 73 f., 76 – 79, 81, 87 f., 92, 95, 97 – 101, 105 f., 109 – 119, 121 f., 124 – 132, 134 – 145, 147, 151 – 159, 162, 164, 166 f., 169 – 171, 175 – 177, 179 f., 182, 184 – 186, 196 – Sculptors, sculptress 2, 46, 55 f., 59, 69, 81, 95, 97 f., 106, 136, 140 f., 152, 155 – 157, 164 – 166, 175, 183 Serra, Richard 201 Sert, Josep Lluís 78 Shand, P. Morton 64 f., 67, 82 Skeaping, John 135 Skinner, Francis 63, 69 Smith, Neil 11, 154 Smithson, Robert 201 Social Realism 88, 91 Society 4, 11 f., 14 – 19, 22 – 24, 29, 36, 40, 45 f., 61, 65, 79 f., 88 f., 91, 122 f., 137, 145, 152, 161 – 163, 171, 189 f., 194 f., 197 f., 203 – New society. See also Reality, New Reality 16, 161, 183, 194 Soja, Edward 1, 13, 194 Soviet Union 37, 55, 90 – Soviet. See also Russia, Russian 5 f., 198

232

Index

Space. See also Gabo, Hepworth and Read 1 – 14, 16 – 18, 20 f., 23 – 29, 32 – 37, 40 f., 46 – 48, 56, 58, 73, 85 f., 91 f., 94 – 114, 116 – 130, 132 – 161, 163 – 189, 191 – 203 – Central perspective 3, 158 – Chinese paintings 47 f. – Constructive space (ideas of) 35 f., 94 f., 140, 145, 182, 184, 189, 192 f., 194, 196, 198 – Container space 1, 14, 17, 23, 32, 36, 176, 182, 193 f., 201 f. – Cosmos 99 – Ilusionary, imagined, space as illusionary 3, 5, 101, 109, 130, 152, 157 f., 177 f., 181 f., 195 – Kantian a priori space 1, 19, 21, 23, 95, 102, 104 – 106, 127, 134, 151, 176, 182 – Lived space, Living space 12, 199, 202 f. – Negative and positive space 130, 135, 145, 183 – ‘Real’ space of the spectator 3 – Space as dynamic 13, 25, 31, 47 f., 94, 110, 132, 137, 182, 184 f., 193 f. – Space as materiality and material 11 f., 26, 56, 94 f., 97, 101 – 108, 110, 112 f., 116, 118 – 121, 127, 130, 133 f., 136 – 138, 140 – 145, 151, 165, 168 – 170, 178, 181 – 185, 196, 198 – Space-time 3, 10, 12, 110, 180, 189, 200 – Tectonic and a-tectonic. See also Wölfflin 108 – Vital space (‘Spazio Vitale’) 199, 202 – Volume. See volume Spain. See also Santa Cruz de Tenerife 43, 73, 83, 152, 190 Spanish Civil War 73, 75, 83, 163 Spatial Art History 1 f., 7, 12, 14 – 29, 31 – 35, 37, 93, 134, 149, 162, 185, 187, 189 – 193, 197 – actors. See also Things 1, 18 – 22, 24 f., 33, 93, 96 f., 185, 189, 197 f. – Humans and things 1, 17, 22, 25, 192, 197 – Humans as actors 1, 18 – 22, 24, 25, 29, 33, 35, 96, 197 f. – Networks. See Networks and Network theories – Nodes 15, 26, 29, 31, 185, 192 f.

– Relational, relationality 16, 18, 24 f., 27, 33, 94, 104, 187, 192, 197 f., 203 – Social relations 2 f., 12, 14 f., 17 – 22, 24 f., 27, 33 – 35, 39, 81, 96, 121, 134, 187 – 191, 197 f. – Spacing 1, 13, 18, 20, 22 – 26, 31 f., 43, 93, 125, 186 – 189, 198 – Spatial continuum. See also Read 147, 176 – Transformations 92 Spatial Turn 1, 3, 10 – 14, 32, 181, 187, 193 f., 196 – 200 Speight, Sadie 49, 51 – 54, 58 – 61, 64 – 66, 68, 71 f., 84, 86 Sphere, spheric. See also Gabo 9, 41, 105, 113, 130 f., 169 f., 183, 197 Stephenson, John 54, 76 Stereometry. See Gabo Stewart, Charles. See also Faber and Faber 82 Stokes, Adrian 76, 127 f., 141, 147, 179 f. Stonehenge (Britain) 67, 70, 140 String sculptures. See also Gabo, Hepworth and Moore 6, 111 – 113, 120, 122, 134, 142, 144, 184 – Cotton 142 – Nylon 110, 130, 142, 145, 170, 183 f. Stumpf, Carl 106 Surrealism. See also Arte Surrealista 39, 42 – 48, 50, 73, 93, 146, 167, 191, 200 – International Surrealist Bulletin 43 – 45 – International Surrealist Exhibition 42 – 44, 46 f., 146 – Surrealists 44, 46 – 48, 96, 146, 154, 198 Sweeney, James 49, 56, 74, 81, 84 Switzerland 87, 93, 190 Syrkus, Helena 67 Syrkus, Szymon 67, 71, 78 f., 81 Tatlin, Vladimir 4, 56, 67, 116, 142, 191 Technology, technological 4, 8, 17, 20, 31, 42, 59, 61, 89 – 91, 99, 140, 200 – 202 – Biotechnics 64, 78 f. Tecton (group). See also Lubetkin 63, 68, 78 Telehor 72 f. Theatre 14, 57, 66, 73, 78 f., 81, 181

Index

The Burlington Magazine 6, 38, 87, 91, 146 The Camden Town Group 96 The Concrete Way 64, 69, 80 The First Russian Art Exhibition. See Berlin The Listener 50, 78 f., 87, 89, 99, 156, 165, 175 The London Mercury 88 These, Antithese, Synthese (exhibition) 1 f., 4 f., 7, 9 f., 12 – 17, 20 – 22, 25 f., 31, 33 – 35, 37, 40 f., 44 – 46, 50 – 52, 54 f., 58, 60, 63 – 80, 87 f., 91 f., 94 – 96, 98 – 101, 103, 105 – 108, 112, 117, 123, 127, 142 f., 145, 147 – 150, 154, 159 f., 164 – 166, 169 – 172, 177, 179 – 185, 187 – 193, 196 – 199, 202 f. The Spectator 89, 180 The Studio 87, 91 The Tennessee Valley Scheme 77 The Times Literary Supplement 87 – 89 Things. See also Spatial Art History 1, 14 – 16, 18, 20 – 28, 31 – 33, 35, 93, 173, 185, 187 – 192, 194, 198, 203 – Circulation of things 2, 12, 20 f., 33, 40, 55 – Dissemination of things 2, 4, 12, 24, 35, 80, 150, 164, 166, 171, 185, 191 – Humans and things 1, 17, 22, 25, 192, 197 – Spacing of things to each other 1, 13, 24, 31, 43, 187 – 189 Thorburn, John M. 45 Tiahuanaco (Peru) 68, 70 Time (concept of time). See also Space 3, 7, 10 f., 12, 14, 34, 95, 99, 104, 109 f., 113, 116, 120, 128, 138, 142 f., 180 f., 185, 187, 189, 200 – 203 Todorov, Tzvetan 90 Totalitarianism, totalitarian 36, 89 f., 147, 196 Transformation. See Spatial Art History

233

Transition. See also Maillart and Sweeney 49, 61, 74 Tschichold, Jan 1, 57, 68 f., 73, 80 Typography. See also Design, designers 69, 73, 79, 162, 171 Unit One (group and exhibition) 9, 39, 49, 51, 70, 136 f., 162 – Photographic Album 70 USA. See also New York 54 f., 83, 85, 93, 186, 190, 193, 199 Utalitarianism, Utilitarian. See also Constructivism 5, 50, 90 f., 160, 198 Utopia, utopian 6, 11, 46, 81, 145, 163, 194 – 197 Vantongerloo, Georges 81 Vesnin, Alexander 56, 84 Vézelay, Paule 6 Vinci, Leonardo da 75 Vitality, vital. See also Art and life 47, 129, 136 f., 142, 155, 173 Volume (of space) 12, 56, 95, 98 f., 101 f., 106, 112 f., 118, 121, 136 f., 149, 152 f., 155 – 157, 165, 169 f., 176 – 178, 182, 184 Vordemberge, Friedrich 73, 76 Westerdahl, Eduardo 64, 72 – 74 Whipsnade (Dunstable). See also Dunstable 63, 68 f. Whiteread, Rachel 145 Wölfflin, Heinrich 17, 107 – 109, 155, 178, 180, 182 f. Worringer, Wilhelm 45, 148, 153, 155, 172 – 174, 177 f., 183 Yorke, Francis Reginald Stevens 65 – 68, 78, 86

54, 57 – 59,