Description

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The sculptor

Naum Knop was born in 1917 in Buenos Aires, into a family of Russian origin originally from Ukraine. His childhood took place in the La Paternal neighborhood, where his father owned a carpentry workshop, a space where he first came into contact with the technique of wood sculpture. After completing his primary studies, he worked with Professor Luis Fernández and soon after devoted himself to furniture design. Around 1935, he entered the Manuel Belgrano School of Fine Arts. Between 1941 and 1942 he followed the master’s course taught by Alberto Lagos and Alfredo Bigatti at the National School of Fine Arts and continued his training between 1942 and 1945 at the Ernesto de la Cárcova Superior School with Soto Avedaño, Carlos de la Cárcova and José. Fioravanti. At this time, he put his works in dialogue with other young artists like Libero Badii and Aurelio Macchi.

Around 1947, he made his study trip. He went to California, in the United States, where he entered the Art Institute of Los Angeles. At the same time, visit museums and galleries. In January 1948, he organized his first exhibition abroad, at the Hall of Arts in Beverly Hills in Los Angeles. During this period, he toured Chicago and then New York. That year, he traveled to Europe; His itinerary includes France, Italy, Switzerland and England. He thus came into contact with the works of Henry Moore, Jean Arp, Jacques Lipchitz, Constantin Brancusi, Umberto Boccioni, Henry Laurens, Ossip Zadkine. Artists who left their mark on the young Knop and to whom he paid homage in his later production. He returned to Argentina in 1949 and set up his workshop where he worked on ornamental sculpture and pieces in which he oscillated between synthetic figuration and abstraction.

In 1956 he began his successful participation in trade fairs, obtaining numerous awards at the national and municipal level. In 1959, he participated in the candidacy for the V Biennale of São Paulo and since then, to the success obtained at the local level, have been added the multiple exhibitions organized in the international field. The exhibitions in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Rome (1966) are remarkable; Dusseldorf (1977); Los Angeles and Palm Spring (1981); New York (1986), San Pablo and Los Angeles (1989). During this period, his work acquired maturity, as he began to experiment with the direct wax technique, obtaining textured, weld-like surfaces that gave it a strong expressive character. Alongside his personal production and small modeling, the artist receives private and public commissions for which he works on large sculptures and murals.

Around 1967, the architect Mario R. Álvarez invited him to participate in a closed competition for the creation of a work that would be located in the General San Martín Cultural Center. Libero Badii and Enio Iommi participate alongside the artist; the elongated bronze figure of Knop is chosen. Among the large-scale monuments, it is worth remembering the work The Three Suns, temporarily located in Recoleta in 1984 and later installed in Maryland, United States; as well as Seated Figure (Reminiscence of Michelangelo) located in the escutcheon of a private building in 1970. Added to this are the numerous murals in which he experiments with various materials and techniques such as bronze casting, reliefs openwork and wood and cement work.