Ben Nicholson (English, 1894-1982)
Biography
Ben Nicholson was one of the most well-known British Modernists. The son of artists William Nicholson and Mabel Pryde, Nicholson studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in 1910–1911. Living in London he was able to travel in Europe, becoming acquainted with the early Cubism of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque; and the abstraction of Piet Mondrian. In 1929, Nicholson travelled to St Ives in Cornwall for the first time with fellow artists Christopher Wood. There they met the retired fisherman and artist Alfred Wallis. The naive seascapes painted by Wallis on odd-shaped repurposed cardboard and Cubism’s flattening of perspective could be seen as Nicholson’s key influences in his first ventures into abstraction. The merging of the genres of landscape and still life, becomes a thread running through most of Nicholson’s career.
Married to Barbara Hepworth in 1938, the pair and their triplets moved to St Ives in 1939, escaping London just days before the start of World War II. Although Nicholson and Hepworth would divorce in 1951, both stayed in St Ives through the 1950s. In 1958 Nicholson moved to Lake Maggiore in Switzerland.
A key proponent of abstract art at a time when it wasn’t commonly accepted in Britain, Nicholson co-edited Circle: International Survey of Constructivist Art (1937), alongside the artist Naum Gabo and architect Leslie Martin. While Nicholson is most known for his white geometric reliefs from the 1930s, his work continued to meander through periods of figuration and non-objectivity.
A large body of work form the late 1950s to the 1970s, are Nicholson’s paintings on paper. Often these works combine line drawings with loose oil washes, in reds, ochres and blues. Many of these works are mounted to prepared boards, with complimentary colour and texture, making them paintings in their own right rather than preparatory experiments later to become a part of an oil painting.
Available works
Please see below the selection of available original artworks by Ben Nicholson.
POA
Pencil and oil wash on shaped card
18x25.5 cm
Framed: 35x43 cm
Signed, dated, and dedicated verso
Provenance:
The Artist, by whom gifted to Jeanne Coppel, Paris, and thence by descent to her son
His sale; Christie's, Paris, 11 December 2007
With Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, London, 2008
Private collection, Madrid
Private collection, UK
This small abstract drawing, dedicated to the Romanian artist working in Paris - Jeanne Coppel, is likely a Christmas present. This is signified by the date and the festive tape attached to the verso. Ben Nicholson spent a lot of time in Paris in the 1930s as his first wife Winifred Nicholson, with whom he had three children, moved there in 1932. In Paris, Ben and Winifred would visit many artists’ studios, it is likely that Ben and Jeanne ran in similar circles and would have met before the war.
POA
Pencil and oil wash on paper, shaped, on the artist's prepared board
45.4x56.5 cm
Provenance:
with Galerie Beyeler, Basel;
with Falchi Arte Moderna, Milan, where purchased in the 1970s;
Private collection
This is one the works that was made by Ben Nicholson on trip to Greece in October 1972 (or shortly thereafter). After visiting Greece for the first time in 1959, Nicholson felt a strong connection to the place and returned several times in the following decades. A specific interest for Nicholson was the interplay of natural and man-made forms in the Greek landscape. In this work the powerful motion of the sea takes the focus. The pencil and oil wash drawing is made on shaped paper and mounted on the artist’s prepared board.