Ben Nicholson, O.M.

Sale, Christie's London, 27th June 1989, lot 465
Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London
Private Collection, Japan

John Russell, Ben Nicholson: Drawings, Paintings and Reliefs 1911-1968, Thames and Hudson, London, 1969, cat. no.112, illustrated;
Norbert Lynton, Ben Nicholson, Phaeton Press Inc., New York, 1993, p.317, illustrated pl. no.304.

Not examined out of the frame. The board appears to be stable. The edges of the board are slightly uneven and there are some minor imperfections across its surface. This appears to be consistent with the artist's working materials. With the exception of the above the work appears to be in excellent overall condition. Ultraviolet light reveals no obvious signs of florescence or retouching. The work is float mounted in a wood frame, under glass. Please contact the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

We are grateful to Lee Beard for his kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work.

'One of the main differences between a representational and an abstract painting is that the former can transport you to Greece by a representation of blue skies and seas, olive groves and marble columns, but in order that you may take part in this you will have to concentrate on the painting, whereas the abstract version by its free use of form and colour will be able to give you the actual quality of Greece itself, and this will become part of the light and space and life in the room - there is no need to concentrate, it becomes part of living' ('Notes on "Abstract" Art', Horizon, vol. 4, no. 22, October 1941, pp. 272-6, cited in Peter Khoroche, Ben Nicholson: Drawings and Painted Reliefs, Lund Humphries, London, 2002, p. 92). 

In 1958, Ben Nicholson left St.Ives, the small Cornish coastal town that had been his home for two decades, and moved to a new life in the mountains of Switzerland. He had recently met, and married, the photographer Felicitas Vogler, and his work was achieving huge acclaim around the world. The move heralded an Indian summer for the artist, opening up the next chapter in a career already filled with achievement.

Nicholson had, from the early 1920s, been at the forefront of the avant-garde in Britain, and into the 1930s his connections with the leading lights of European Modernism grew. By the outbreak of WWII, Nicholson’s standing was such that it was at his invitation that Mondrian had come to London, and alongside Henry Moore and Nicholson’s then wife Barbara Hepworth he was one of the leading artistic figures in Britain. After the war, his reputation spread across the Atlantic and his standing grew, with many of the most important private and institutional collections in America jostling to acquire his best work.

The move to Switzerland simultaneously gave Nicholson freedom in many aspects of his life. It removed him from the internal politics of the British art world and the rivalries that had emerged with his peers. It exposed him to a landscape he had known in his youth. It brought him a large new studio that allowed him to make large-scale paintings, such as Oct 61 (Mycenae - Axe-Blue) (Fig. 1., sold in these rooms, 11^th July 2013, for £1,082,500). It gave him a new breadth in his work that synthesised so much that had gone before it and created a magisterial style. Nov 59 Mycenae 3 (brown and blue) emerged from just this time.

How much was attributable to his new surroundings has been much debated by writers on Nicholson, but it is clear that even from soon after the new works began to be exhibited, there was recognition of a definite development from the past. In 1967, Geoffrey Grigson, who had known Nicholson since the 1930s and was thus very well-placed to see these reliefs in the context of his wider career, saw a very distinct relationship between ideas and tones suggested by the landscape and the forms and colours of the work. Nicholson confirmed this in a letter to Grigson in response, but felt that the sources were less derived from a particular landscape than being the manifestation of an idea that drew on all landscape experiences of the past. He particularly noted that certain colours are difficult to locate in a place where they both suggest and do not suggest their source, and whilst his statement is with reference to 1966 (Zennor Quoit 2) (The Phillips Collection, Washington DC), it could equally be applied to Nov 59 Mycenae 3 (brown and blue). Discussing the central blue area, which Grigson had seen as a form of ‘window’, Nicholson felt it came from ‘…something much more distant – more from one’s imagination than the blue window rectangle. I see it as something connected with the sea on Zennor side of W.Penwith but even that is too direct a statement. It must be mental & must not be directly sea or sky & that is why it’s a difficult colour to grapple with – it is always trying to become sea or sky?’ (Nicholson, private correspondence with Geoffrey Grigson, 21 April 1967, quoted in Peter Koroche, Ben Nicholson: Drawings and Painted Reliefs, Lund Humphries, London 2002, p.88).

It is perhaps Nicholson’s success in perfecting this balancing act with the net of ideas that make up both his and our own memories of such sources that makes Nov 59 Mycenae 3 (brown and blue) such a powerful painting.