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Lot Essay
In 1953 Nicholson returned to the medium of the painted relief after an interval of six years. Oct 8-53 (Kerrowe) is ordered with simplicity and serenity, reinforced by the pale tones of the work. There is a delicacy in the fine line of the circle, and the balance of the other shapes at the centre of the relief creates a sense of equilibrium.
Peter Khoroche writes, ‘In these later reliefs we see Nicholson constantly exploring and developing the potentialities of colour and texture just as much as form. It as if all the subtle gradations of colour, tone and texture that he registered while drawing landscape and architecture were stored away, later to find expression in his carved surfaces where colour is not simply brushed onto the surface of the board but is made to seem indivisible from it. These formal and technical developments go hand in hand with Nicholson’s expanding range of motifs and with his desire to make his work as inclusive a response to life as possible’ (exhibition catalogue, Ben Nicholson ‘chasing out something alive’ drawings and painted reliefs 1950-75, Cambridge, Kettle’s Yard, 2002, p. 26).
The 1950s was the most important decade for the recognition and reputation of Ben Nicholson as Britain’s leading modernist and abstract painter. He won the prestigious Carnegie Prize (Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh) in 1952. In 1954 he was chosen, together with Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, to represent Britain at the 27th Venice Biennale. In 1955 a retrospective exhibition of his work was shown at the Tate Gallery in London. In 1956 he won the first Guggenheim International painting prize, and in 1957 the International prize for painting at the São Paulo Art Biennial.
Oct 8-53 (Kerrowe) was acquired directly from Nicholson by Fernand Berckelaers (1901-1999), whose pseudonym Michel Seuphor was an anagram of Orpheus. He was a Belgian painter, who moved in Dutch, Belgian and French avant-garde circles. He associated with Theo van Doesberg and Piet Mondrian, and founded the abstract artist's group Cercle et Carré which included Wassily Kandinsky and Le Corbusier. Seuphor wrote and edited three books, A Dictionary of Abstract Painting (1958), Abstract Painting: 50 Years of Accomplishment (1964) and The Sculpture of this Century (1960).
We are very grateful to Rachel Smith and Lee Beard for their assistance in cataloguing this lot.
Peter Khoroche writes, ‘In these later reliefs we see Nicholson constantly exploring and developing the potentialities of colour and texture just as much as form. It as if all the subtle gradations of colour, tone and texture that he registered while drawing landscape and architecture were stored away, later to find expression in his carved surfaces where colour is not simply brushed onto the surface of the board but is made to seem indivisible from it. These formal and technical developments go hand in hand with Nicholson’s expanding range of motifs and with his desire to make his work as inclusive a response to life as possible’ (exhibition catalogue, Ben Nicholson ‘chasing out something alive’ drawings and painted reliefs 1950-75, Cambridge, Kettle’s Yard, 2002, p. 26).
The 1950s was the most important decade for the recognition and reputation of Ben Nicholson as Britain’s leading modernist and abstract painter. He won the prestigious Carnegie Prize (Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh) in 1952. In 1954 he was chosen, together with Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, to represent Britain at the 27th Venice Biennale. In 1955 a retrospective exhibition of his work was shown at the Tate Gallery in London. In 1956 he won the first Guggenheim International painting prize, and in 1957 the International prize for painting at the São Paulo Art Biennial.
Oct 8-53 (Kerrowe) was acquired directly from Nicholson by Fernand Berckelaers (1901-1999), whose pseudonym Michel Seuphor was an anagram of Orpheus. He was a Belgian painter, who moved in Dutch, Belgian and French avant-garde circles. He associated with Theo van Doesberg and Piet Mondrian, and founded the abstract artist's group Cercle et Carré which included Wassily Kandinsky and Le Corbusier. Seuphor wrote and edited three books, A Dictionary of Abstract Painting (1958), Abstract Painting: 50 Years of Accomplishment (1964) and The Sculpture of this Century (1960).
We are very grateful to Rachel Smith and Lee Beard for their assistance in cataloguing this lot.