Construction in the Third and Fourth Dimension

This bronze sculpture is one of the last major works by Antoine Pevsner, elder brother of Naum Gabo and collaborator with him in founding the Con­structivist movement in Russia in the 1920s. Pevsner’s interest in concepts of space was influenced by the icons of Orthodox churches and monasteries he saw while studying in Kiev and St. Petersburg as well as by Impressionist painting and the engineering magic of the Eiffel Tower. One trademark of Pevsner’s work was his play with the ways flat metal planes could contort, suggesting the possibility of infinite continuity. This sculpture, with a black granite pedestal also designed by the artist, serves as a memorial to the Danish scientist and humanist Niels Bohr, who had ties to the Department of Physics at Princeton. A quotation from Bohr’s 1950 letter to the United Nations describing the policy of an Open World flanks the paving stones at the base of the sculpture.