Property from the Collection of Angela Verren Taunt
Ben Nicholson
1972 (Olympia)
Auction Closed
June 7, 03:45 PM GMT
Estimate
8,000 - 12,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Property from the Collection of Angela Verren Taunt
Ben Nicholson
1894 - 1982
1972 (Olympia)
signed with initials BN_ and inscribed reserved Angela Verren (on the reverse of the backboard)
pencil and oil wash on paper, attached to Artist's backboard
unframed (sheet): 31 by 52.5cm.; 12¼ by 20½in.
framed: 48 by 70cm.; 19 by 27½in.
Executed in 1972.
We are grateful to Rachel Smith for her kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work.
A catalogue raisonné of Ben Nicholson’s paintings and reliefs is currently being prepared, and the authors encourage owners to be in touch. Please write to Rachel Smith, c/o Sotheby’s Modern & Postwar British Art, Sotheby’s, 34-35 New Bond Street, London, W1A 2AA or email info@bncr.org.uk.
Gifted by Ben Nicholson to Angela Verren Taunt
London, The Tate Gallery, Ben Nicholson Drawings 1974, November-December 1974, no. 21
Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Ben Nicholson and the St Ives School (details untraced)
Norbert Lynton, Ben Nicholson, Phaidon Press Limited, London, 1993, no. 376, illustrated p. 392 and p. 464
London, Piano Nobile, Ben Nicholson | Distant Planes 1955-1979, 15 October-29 January 2020, no. 15, illustrated in the exh. cat.
Ben Nicholson met Angela Verren Taunt at a Christmas party in Cambridge on 29 December 1971. Angela was a talented painter herself and had been a great admirer of Nicholson’s work. Ben invited Angela to visit his studio soon after they met, and it was clear there was an immediate connection. She shortly became his studio assistant, and the close friendship which developed between the two was of fundamental importance to the last ten years of Nicholson’s life. They also worked as collaborators on occasion. The support and creative exchange Ben received from Angela was an energizing element, which along with a return to the UK, helped him recapture a creative energy and zest for life and encouraged his artistic output during this final decade.
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