Naum Gabo (1890–1977) is one of those artists who had long been almost overlooked. His famous “heads,” which are often torsos plus a head, are reproduced in all the histories of Cubism and Constructivism, and the significance of his experiments with the modem materials of plastic, nylon filament, wire, and stainless steel is generally acknowledged. Yet the work of this Russian-born artist, whose poststudent career spanned from the revolutionary days of 1915 to the mid ’70s, has never really been judged as a whole.

In these days of revisionism, no stone is being left unturned, and so Gabo, too,