Winifred Nicholson

Crane Kalman Gallery, London, from whom acquired by Mrs Anthony Thesiger, March 1969
Crane Kalman Gallery, London, where purchased by the previous owners, 1994, and thence by descent 

London, Crane Kalman Gallery, The Flowers of Winifred Nicholson, 25th February - 15th March 1969, cat. no.30.

The sheet is fully laid down onto the backing board. The sheet undulates slightly, but otherwise appears sound. The edges of the sheet are slightly uneven, which appears inkeeping with the artist's working method. There is a small crease at the upper left corner. There appear to be several very small repairs to the sheet along the upper horizontal edge. There are a few very small flecks of loss to the paint along the lower horizontal edge, most probably as a result of frame abrasion, most of which are only visible when viewed unframed.There is some very light craquelure in some of the more impasto areas of paint towards the centre of the composition. There is some very light surface dirt and studio detritus. Subject to the above, the work appears in very good overall condition. Ultraviolet light reveals no obvious signs of fluorescence or retouching. The work is presented in a simple painted wooden frame, housed under glass. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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We are grateful to Jovan Nicholson for his kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work.

Winifred Nicholson delighted in her numerous visits to Greece, which began in the early 1960’s, as is clear from one of her first letters home: 'The hills which look brown bare from the bus, when you tread on them, are wild flowers, perfume of honey and thyme, like a carpet – every kind and colour of flowers and all wonderful shapes, clear and definite like everything in Greece – blue harebells and pink wild gladioli like lilies and the starry asphodels and on the red earth companies of pink pale convolvulus – pentagons looking up to the azure of the sky – all leaves grey and downy. I never thought of such flowers or could imagine them in their wild profusion – campanulas like starfish on the rocks, mauve marigolds and golden ones – and here the mountains a yellow, lemon yellow haze of a tall bush like a golden glowing archangel.' (Winifred Nicholson quoted in Andrew Nicholson, (ed.), Unknown Colour, Paintings, Letters, Writings by Winifred Nicholson,  Faber and Faber, London, 1987, p.226).

Winifred Nicholson exhibited Flowers in Sunlight at her solo exhibition at the Crane Kalman Gallery in March 1969, and wrote in the catalogue: 'Flowers mean different things to different people – to some they are trophies to decorate their dwellings – (for this, plastic flowers will do as well as real ones). To some they are buttonholes for their conceit – to botanists they are species and tabulated categories. To Bees, of course, they are Honey. To me they are the secret of the cosmos. Their secret cannot be put into image, far less into the smallness of words. But I try to. Their silence says to me, ‘My rootlets are moving in the ark, in the wet, cold damp mud – My leaflets are moving in the brightness of sky – My flowerface has seen the darkness which cannot be seen and the brightness that is too bright to see – has seen earth to sun and sun to earth.’” (quoted in exhibition catalogue, The Flowers of Winifred Nicholson, Crane Kalman Gallery, March 1969).

In her many visits to Greece Winifred Nicholson travelled throughout the country, but was particularly fond of Mycenae where she often stayed at the Belle Helene. Sadly in April 1967, at about the time Flowers in Sunlight was painted, possibly near Argos, the Colonels dictatorship came to power bringing with them a change in atmosphere which Winifred detested and it was to be some years before she felt able to return to mainland Greece.

Jovan Nicholson