Ben Nicholson, O.M.

The Artist, by whom gifted to David Baxandall in the 1940s and thence by descent to the present owner

The work has been executed on artist's card, which is sound. There is a minor craquelure pattern to the grey, brown and blue pigments, visible upon very close inspection. There is some minor frame abrasion along the right and upper edges. The pigments have faded very slightly, as indicated by the edges which are covered by the frame. Held under glass in a white painted wood frame. Please telephone the department on 0207 293 6424 if you have any questions about the present work.
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After the outbreak of WWII, Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson moved down to Cornwall at the invitation of Adrian Stokes and Margaret Mellis, initially staying with them at their house, Little Parc Owles, before moving to Dunluce, another house in Carbis Bay, just after Christmas 1939.

With the increasing restrictions on materials and travel, and the pressures of a young family, both artists' work during the war years is notable not only for its reduced scale, but also for the way in which both seemed to use the time for a period of re-assessment of their own work. For Hepworth, this took the form of an increased emphasis on drawing and its potential for allowing her to develop ideas that would take three-dimensional form after the war. However, Nicholson's work is marked by a parallel process of re-investigating the abstract themes that he was exploring before the war whilst simultaneously developing a style which fused a new interest in landscape with an abstract vocabulary.

Although the present work is very clearly a purely non-referential abstract composition, comparison with the other variants in the series does reveal a more landscape-inspired palette. The present work is the fourth version amongst at least nine variants on differing scales and in various media exploring ideas that had first appeared in his work during the 1930s when he worked alongside Piet Mondrian in Hampstead. The two best-known and largest being 1940-42 (two forms) (Southampton City Art Gallery) and 1940-43 (two forms) (National Museum of Wales, Cardiff). Whilst the basic forms remain constant, Nicholson's subtle variations in colour and proportion keep this unmistakeably modernist image fresh. However, we may already be seeing the influence of his surroundings coming into play, with Norbert Lynton finding the horizontal division of the background to the composition clearly indicative of a '...sand, sea and sky effect...' (Norbert Lynton, Ben Nicholson, Phaidon, London, 1993, pp.181-186) and whilst the colours themselves are not ones that are unknown to Nicholson, their combination and the thought he expends on their relationships must reflect the importance that colour assumed for him immediately on his arrival in Cornwall. His earliest letters are filled with references to the colours around him, and the greys, blues, whites and reddish browns he mentions all appear prominently in the paintings of this period.

The first owner of the present work, David Baxandall (1905 – 1992), was a close friend and early supporter of Ben Nicholson. Baxandall was a distinguished art historian and began his career in 1929 as assistant keeper at the National Museum of Wales becoming Keeper in 1939. After serving with the RAF during the Second World War, Baxandall was appointed Director of the Manchester City Art Galleries and was instrumental in adding some modern pieces to their collection including works by Nicholson. He became close to the critic Herbert Read and was also good friends with the patron Helen Sutherland. In 1952, Baxandall took up the Directorship of the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh and together with Colin Thompson and Douglas Hall, set up the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art which opened in 1960 specifically to promote Modern and Contemporary art. He worked tirelessly until his retirement in 1970 and published a key monograph about his friend in 1962 entitled Ben Nicholson: an Account of his Work (Methuen, London).