Ben Nicholson 1894 - 1982

Ben Nicholson was born in Buckinghamshire in 1894, the eldest son of the painter William Nicholson. In 1920 he married fellow artist Winifred Roberts and lived variously in Cumberland, Switzerland and London during the 1920s and 30s. In 1930 Nicholson met Barbara Hepworth, whom he subsequently married. Nicholson and Hepworth moved to Cornwall in 1939 where he lived until 1958. Increasingly Nicholson spent time away from Cornwall until he moved to Ticino, Switzerland in 1958. He enjoyed international recognition during the 1950s including the first Guggenheim International Painting Prize, 1956 and the International Prize for Painting at the 1957 Sao Paulo Biennial. He returned to England in 1971 and died in London in 1982.

works in the collection - 11

PAC/018

The composition is spatially ambiguous. Roughly incised lines around two of the fireworks suggest shadows and shallow pictorial space, but this is contradicted by three of the forms, which penetrate the works painted black border complicating the recessional scheme constructed in the rest of the painting. The treatment of the picture surface indicates Nicholson's awareness of developments in contemporary European painting, particularly that of the Cubist's Picasso and Braque. Nicholson had made several visits to Paris during the 1920s with his first wife, the painter Winifred Nicholson.

1929 (fireworks)


PAC/022

This painting was made after Nicholson and Hepworth visited Dieppe at the beginning of their relationship and the bottle of Talc de Coty suggests an intimate interior as opposed to a cafˇ still life. Nicholson's Cubist approach reveals his interest in Picasso and Braque. Nicholson regularly visited Europe the 1930s. He considered moving to Paris in 1932 on the advice of the dealer Henri Kahnweiler. He was invited to join Abstraction-Creation in 1933 by Helion, confirming his growing reputation within the avant-garde.

1932 (talc de Coty)


PAC/002

Pared-back underpainting against flat areas of colour became a distinguishing feature of Nicholson's work. This developed out of his practice of reworking earlier paintings. Often the original composition was reduced to a simple textural ground for the later image. The still life paintings of this period resolve the formal considerations of Nicholson's pure abstractions with his interest in Cubism. The composition of this work balances abstraction and representation owing much to Nicholson's awareness of the work of Mondrian and Braque.

1932-40 (still life)


PAC/023

Nicholson was exhibiting with Abstraction-Creation when this work was made and had recently been introduced to Piet Mondrian. This association was contemporary with the emergence of a formal linear precision in the execution of his work. Nicholson's friendship with Mondrian developed when the Dutch artist moved to London at the outbreak of WWII. Mondrian contributed to Circle, a survey of constructive art, that Nicholson co-edited with Gabo and JL Martin.

1934 (painting)


PAC/024

Nicholson made several visits to Europe in 1935 during which he met Mondrian, Gabo, Kandinsky and Arp. The emergence at this time of his signature precision and clarity is contemporary with this increase in contact with major figures of the modern movement. Nicholson was instrumental in Mondrian and Gabo moving to London as political polarisation in Europe forced many avant-garde figures to leave the continent. In November 1935 he exhibited in Artists Against Fascism and War with Moore, Nash, Gill and others.

1935 (painting)


PAC/021

Nicholson reintroduced colour to his reliefs after moving to Cornwall at the outbreak of WWII. Although he made carved reliefs throughout his career, it was the formal austerity of his earlier white reliefs that placed him in the vanguard of British modernism. Nicholson's association with important European modern artists such, as Mondrian, Gabo, Arp and Braque introduced their ideas into Britain. In 1937 Nicholson, Leslie Martin and Naum Gabo, published Circle, a survey of constructive art.

1939 (painted relief)


PAC/025

Nicholson regularly reworked compositions during his career, exploring the visual impact of colour modulations. In a near identical painting from 1943 Nicholson reconfigured the spatial relationships within the composition by interchanging certain colours and adding others. The process of developing an extended series of closely related works is a recurrent practice amongst artists during the 20th century. Nicholson would have been familiar with this approach through his awareness of the work of Piet Mondrian and his membership of the Paris based group, Abstraction-Crˇation.

1943 (painted relief version 2)


PAC/026

Increasingly during the late 1940s Nicholson's focus turned towards still life and landscape subjects, and this is one of relatively few reliefs made at that time. Formally it relates back to a group of monochrome works executed ten years earlier. The arrangement of the squares within a strict grid and the construction of space around a tonal treatment of form highlights Nicholson's comprehension of ideas developed by leading European modern artists, such as Mondrian and Gabo.

1944-5 (painted relief)


PAC/019

The increasingly complicated pictorial and spatial relationships in Nicholson's work at this time suggest his renewed interest in still-life and Cubism. After the war landscape and still-life played an increasingly important role in Nicholson's art informing the colours, textures and arrangement of his works.

1945 (two circles)


PAC/028

The board was originally a box lid that Nicholson painted, scraped-back and reworked several times before completion. The hinge screw holes remain visible on the edge of the panel along with an inscription dedicating the work to Nicholson's sister, Nancy.

three circles circa 1946-47


PAC/027

The surface of this piece is worked to suggest a weathered quality reminiscent of lichen encrusted granite. Carving into hardboard and working colour into the surface gave Nicholson's works a subtle differentiation of tone and texture, which he used increasingly from the early 1950s.

October 1952 (lichen)