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Lot Essay
Nicholson left Cornwall in Spring 1958 with his wife, the photographer Felicitas Vogler, and moved to Switzerland, settling in the canton of Ticino in a house on the hillside above Brissago with views over Lake Maggiore. On leaving England, he now finally felt that he had achieved the international success he had craved as he had won the Carnegie International prize in 1952; exhibited at the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1954; and won the Guggenheim International Award for painting in 1957. The move to another country and a very different landscape stimulated a new phase in his art. He returned to making carved reliefs but unlike the white reliefs of 1934-8, these were painted in naturalistic earthy colours that were inspired by the quality of the natural light, evoking the landscape that he experienced around him.
Aug 62 (Valle Maggia) is an oil painting of coloured shapes in relief on a board carved by the artist. The subtitle indicates that this work reflects the sensation the artist experienced during a visit to Valle Maggia, an alpine valley near his home, on a summer's day. The abstracted forms evoke the lower Maggia valley with its steep granite walls, topped by a glorious skyline above. The subtle tones of brown and grey are brought into relief to give another dimension to the sense of landscape. Norman Reid has commented on Nicholson's intention to create a sense of place in his Swiss landscapes, ‘The works of this period rely less upon the tension of Nicholson’s line and the elegance of his composition and more upon his ability to concentrate experience in the discovery of form. … They convey the essence of landscapes as the artist has experienced them and their mood as he has recalled it' (exhibition catalogue, Ben Nicholson, London, Tate Gallery, 1969, pp. 53-55).
Discussing his move to Switzerland, and the inspirational beauty of the landscape that he saw around him, Nicholson enthused, ‘The landscape is superb, especially in winter and when seen from the changing levels of the mountain side,’ he wrote, ‘the persistent sunlight, the bare trees seen against a translucent lake, the hard, rounded forms of the snow topped mountains, and perhaps with a late evening moon rising beyond in a pale, cerulean sky - is entirely magical and with the kind of visual poetry which I would like to find in my painting’ (the artist quoted in ‘Mr Ben Nicholson answers some questions about his work and view,’ The Times, 12 November 1959).
Aug 62 (Valle Maggia) is an oil painting of coloured shapes in relief on a board carved by the artist. The subtitle indicates that this work reflects the sensation the artist experienced during a visit to Valle Maggia, an alpine valley near his home, on a summer's day. The abstracted forms evoke the lower Maggia valley with its steep granite walls, topped by a glorious skyline above. The subtle tones of brown and grey are brought into relief to give another dimension to the sense of landscape. Norman Reid has commented on Nicholson's intention to create a sense of place in his Swiss landscapes, ‘The works of this period rely less upon the tension of Nicholson’s line and the elegance of his composition and more upon his ability to concentrate experience in the discovery of form. … They convey the essence of landscapes as the artist has experienced them and their mood as he has recalled it' (exhibition catalogue, Ben Nicholson, London, Tate Gallery, 1969, pp. 53-55).
Discussing his move to Switzerland, and the inspirational beauty of the landscape that he saw around him, Nicholson enthused, ‘The landscape is superb, especially in winter and when seen from the changing levels of the mountain side,’ he wrote, ‘the persistent sunlight, the bare trees seen against a translucent lake, the hard, rounded forms of the snow topped mountains, and perhaps with a late evening moon rising beyond in a pale, cerulean sky - is entirely magical and with the kind of visual poetry which I would like to find in my painting’ (the artist quoted in ‘Mr Ben Nicholson answers some questions about his work and view,’ The Times, 12 November 1959).