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Lot Essay
Cumbrian Landscape was painted at Cockley Moor, Helen Sutherland’s house in the Lake District. It shows the view from Sutherland’s house, which was perched high up beyond the village of Dockray, looking towards Watermillock Fell. Helen Sutherland was Winifred Nicholson’s most important collector – the 1970 Arts Council exhibition Helen Sutherland Collection lists twelve works as belonging to her, although she actually owned more.
Helen Sutherland was one of the most remarkable collectors of the first half of the Twentieth Century and deserves to be better known. Aside from Winifred Nicholson, she was also the most important collector for Ben Nicholson, and included works by Mondrian, Gabo, Hepworth, Henry Moore, Courbet, Paul Nash and Alfred Wallis in her collection. She moved to Cockley Moor, Lake District, in 1939 and had an extension to the house designed by Leslie Martin. Winifred Nicholson was a regular visitor, and it was at Cockley Moor that she met the poet Kathleen Raine, who became a close friend and with whom she made many visits to the Hebrides. The New Zealand born pianist Vera Moore was also a visitor, and at times the painter, the poet and the pianist were all at Cockley Moor together. Winifred Nicholson liked to paint pictures from friends’ houses and painted at least three other works showing the view from Cockley Moor: Pinks and Roses, Cockley Moor (J. Nicholson, Winifred Nicholson: Liberation of Colour, London, 2016, pp. 100-101); Cockley Moor, Sheffield Museums (J. Nicholson, Winifred Nicholson in Cumberland, Abbot Hall, Kendal, 2016, p. 60); and there is another unpublished in a private collection. Cumbrian Landscape shows a slightly different section of the view from these three works. David Jones was another visitor to Cockley Moor and the same stone structure is visible in David Jones’ Helen’s Gate (private collection), although in Winifred Nicholson’s work it is placed more centrally in the composition. Cumbrian Landscape depicts a much loved place, with muted colours characteristic of the north Lakes on a blustery early spring day, the low clouds scudding across the tops of the fells, with the lambs and the yellow of the daffodils hinting at the promise of things to come.
After Helen Sutherland died in 1966 Winifred Nicholson was moved to write to Raine: ‘How much she gave … I share with you the gratitude we all feel, for all she gave us, appreciation of our lives, and as you say the demand that we live up to the high standard she set, for herself and for us all, the standard of the highest perfection known to her … She now has joined the immortals and leaves a great life behind her here on earth, a life which used its wealth to the best use, and created a way of life, her own, but a noble thing like a great picture or poem’ (the artist quoted in J. Nicholson, Winifred Nicholson in Cumberland, Abbot Hall, Kendal, 2016, p. 100).
We are very grateful to Jovan Nicholson for his preparing this catalogue entry.
Helen Sutherland was one of the most remarkable collectors of the first half of the Twentieth Century and deserves to be better known. Aside from Winifred Nicholson, she was also the most important collector for Ben Nicholson, and included works by Mondrian, Gabo, Hepworth, Henry Moore, Courbet, Paul Nash and Alfred Wallis in her collection. She moved to Cockley Moor, Lake District, in 1939 and had an extension to the house designed by Leslie Martin. Winifred Nicholson was a regular visitor, and it was at Cockley Moor that she met the poet Kathleen Raine, who became a close friend and with whom she made many visits to the Hebrides. The New Zealand born pianist Vera Moore was also a visitor, and at times the painter, the poet and the pianist were all at Cockley Moor together. Winifred Nicholson liked to paint pictures from friends’ houses and painted at least three other works showing the view from Cockley Moor: Pinks and Roses, Cockley Moor (J. Nicholson, Winifred Nicholson: Liberation of Colour, London, 2016, pp. 100-101); Cockley Moor, Sheffield Museums (J. Nicholson, Winifred Nicholson in Cumberland, Abbot Hall, Kendal, 2016, p. 60); and there is another unpublished in a private collection. Cumbrian Landscape shows a slightly different section of the view from these three works. David Jones was another visitor to Cockley Moor and the same stone structure is visible in David Jones’ Helen’s Gate (private collection), although in Winifred Nicholson’s work it is placed more centrally in the composition. Cumbrian Landscape depicts a much loved place, with muted colours characteristic of the north Lakes on a blustery early spring day, the low clouds scudding across the tops of the fells, with the lambs and the yellow of the daffodils hinting at the promise of things to come.
After Helen Sutherland died in 1966 Winifred Nicholson was moved to write to Raine: ‘How much she gave … I share with you the gratitude we all feel, for all she gave us, appreciation of our lives, and as you say the demand that we live up to the high standard she set, for herself and for us all, the standard of the highest perfection known to her … She now has joined the immortals and leaves a great life behind her here on earth, a life which used its wealth to the best use, and created a way of life, her own, but a noble thing like a great picture or poem’ (the artist quoted in J. Nicholson, Winifred Nicholson in Cumberland, Abbot Hall, Kendal, 2016, p. 100).
We are very grateful to Jovan Nicholson for his preparing this catalogue entry.