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Lot Essay
This work is one of a series of still-lifes completed in 1946.
In many of his still-life's of the 1940's the jug and cup were favourite objects. In the present work Nicholson drew and painted them compressed against the background space, tilting the perspective, so that they appear to exist on one plane. He loved to use earthy browns, blacks and whites, interspersed with bright lurid colours; in the case of the present work, scarlet red, sky blue and lilac.
Nicholson's still-lifes of the 1940's 'show a switch away from the analytic intensity of the abstractions toward the sensuous pleasures of gay color, rich texture, and elegant linear movement. The grounds of these works are built up with several thin layers of paint that are scraped or rubbed in areas, producing a nuanced color-space that dissolves away the picture plane. Nicholson's willowy line glides through this space but now traces the silhouettes or fragments of table tops and still-life objects. Interspersed planes, some of them solidly colored, others transparent or lightly shaded, create a sense of shifting ambiguous spatial relations.' (S. A. Nash, Ben Nicholson, Fifty Years of His Art, New York 1978, p. 83).
According to Sir Alan Bowness, this work was painted at the home of John Summerson, an architectural historian who was married to Barbara Hepworth's sister Elizabeth. He was a witness at their wedding in 1936 and was commissioned by Penguin in 1943 to write a monograph on Nicholson which was published in 1949. They corresponded frequently during this period, and it was Summerson who helped Nicholson to clarify in words his vision as an artist.
In many of his still-life's of the 1940's the jug and cup were favourite objects. In the present work Nicholson drew and painted them compressed against the background space, tilting the perspective, so that they appear to exist on one plane. He loved to use earthy browns, blacks and whites, interspersed with bright lurid colours; in the case of the present work, scarlet red, sky blue and lilac.
Nicholson's still-lifes of the 1940's 'show a switch away from the analytic intensity of the abstractions toward the sensuous pleasures of gay color, rich texture, and elegant linear movement. The grounds of these works are built up with several thin layers of paint that are scraped or rubbed in areas, producing a nuanced color-space that dissolves away the picture plane. Nicholson's willowy line glides through this space but now traces the silhouettes or fragments of table tops and still-life objects. Interspersed planes, some of them solidly colored, others transparent or lightly shaded, create a sense of shifting ambiguous spatial relations.' (S. A. Nash, Ben Nicholson, Fifty Years of His Art, New York 1978, p. 83).
According to Sir Alan Bowness, this work was painted at the home of John Summerson, an architectural historian who was married to Barbara Hepworth's sister Elizabeth. He was a witness at their wedding in 1936 and was commissioned by Penguin in 1943 to write a monograph on Nicholson which was published in 1949. They corresponded frequently during this period, and it was Summerson who helped Nicholson to clarify in words his vision as an artist.