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Lot Essay
'Nicholson’s pictures, whether abstract or not, embrace a world of vital sensation. Regarded from a material angle they may be said to etherealise matter, to translate it from the crude world of real objects into the play of pure forms' (A. Kesser (foreword), exhibition catalogue, Ben Nicholson, Zürich, Galerie André Emmerich, 1975, p. v).
Created during his final years in Cornwall before relocating to Switzerland, 1955-56 (umber + light red) encapsulates the maturity of Nicholson’s abstract artistic vernacular. His rigorous yet intuitive engagement with form, texture and colour demonstrates a sensitivity to the natural world, an approach that defined his output throughout his career.
By the mid-1950s, Nicholson was a firmly established artist. Having been heralded as England’s ‘hero of modernism’ in the 1930s, his reputation continued to grow and he received some of the most significant accolades of his career: first prize at the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh (1952), the ‘Ulisse’ acquisition prize at the XXVII Venice Biennale (1955), the Guggenheim International Painting Prize (1956) and the international prize for painting at the São Paulo Biennial (1957). In 1954, he represented Britain alongside Francis Bacon at the Venice Biennale, where he was lauded as the ‘J.S. Bach of abstract painting’. Furthermore, Nicholson was also honoured with a retrospective at the Tate Gallery in 1955, whilst his works were acquired by major institutions around the world, affirming his significance both domestically and internationally. The present work thus displays the artist at the height of his powers.
1955-56 (umber + light red) reflects Nicholson’s evolving approach to relief painting. At first glance, it may appear to recall the Modernist purism of his work from the 1930s - Mondrianesque in its severity and precisely controlled interplay of geometric forms and flat colours, alongside a preference for the right angle as an ordering device - but on closer inspection one registers a distinct departure from that paradigm. There is an earthbound level of tactile, sensuous enjoyment in the variety of textures and muted colours, while the scraped and abraded surface evokes a sense of natural erosion. His sensitivity to materiality is evident; the paint appears integrated into the surface, suggesting an organic unity between medium and form.
On Nicholson’s reliefs of the 1950s, Jeremy Lewison wrote, ‘their surfaces have been scraped and sanded so that the paint appears inherent in the wood. This manner is distinctively different from the coloured reliefs of the 1930s where no attempt was made to disguise the fact that paint was applied to the support. A visit to Brittany in 1948, where he visited some of the Neolithic sites, had made a considerable impression. He observed standing stones weathered by age and scarred by the action of nature. The experience was not fully assimilated until the 1960s but in the reliefs of the 1950s it was beginning to manifest itself. Often pale and chalky, these works feel remarkably northern European when compared with the southern [reliefs]. Nicholson had an uncanny ability not only to suggest different geographies but also different climates’ (exhibition catalogue, Ben Nicholson, Hayama, Museum of Modern Art, 2004, p. 108).
Nicholson’s reliefs demonstrate a profound awareness of architecture and environmental influences. The subtle irregularities in his geometric forms - the slight distortions in circles and squares - create a tension between perfection and the organic, a quality associated with classical architecture. Furthermore, he takes a phenomenological approach where formal abstraction is imbued with an emotional and sensory resonance - a quality echoed in the work of contemporary St Ives artists, Patrick Heron and Paul Feiler. He believed that abstraction could distill the essence of experience, rather than merely imitate reality. Thus, by capturing the qualities of space and atmosphere rather than a direct depiction, he allows the viewer to engage with the sensation of a landscape. Nicholson himself noted that abstract art was not a retreat into an ‘ivory tower’ but rather a means of reconnecting art with everyday life (Ben Nicholson, ‘Notes on Abstract Art,’ Tate Archive, 1937-48, p. 1).
Like many of Nicholson’s works from the 1950s, 1955-56 (umber + light red) has passed through significant collections and exhibitions. It was exhibited at the Galerie de France in Paris in 1956 as the very first work in the exhibition and later in 1959 it toured galleries in Zürich, Hanover, Mannheim and Essen. As a product of his final years in Cornwall it represents a critical moment in Nicholson’s career, encapsulating a period of transition, personally and artistically. Not only does it bridge the severity of his earlier reliefs with the more atmospheric, texturally nuanced abstractions of his later years, but it marks the culmination of his engagement with the British landscape.
Created during his final years in Cornwall before relocating to Switzerland, 1955-56 (umber + light red) encapsulates the maturity of Nicholson’s abstract artistic vernacular. His rigorous yet intuitive engagement with form, texture and colour demonstrates a sensitivity to the natural world, an approach that defined his output throughout his career.
By the mid-1950s, Nicholson was a firmly established artist. Having been heralded as England’s ‘hero of modernism’ in the 1930s, his reputation continued to grow and he received some of the most significant accolades of his career: first prize at the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh (1952), the ‘Ulisse’ acquisition prize at the XXVII Venice Biennale (1955), the Guggenheim International Painting Prize (1956) and the international prize for painting at the São Paulo Biennial (1957). In 1954, he represented Britain alongside Francis Bacon at the Venice Biennale, where he was lauded as the ‘J.S. Bach of abstract painting’. Furthermore, Nicholson was also honoured with a retrospective at the Tate Gallery in 1955, whilst his works were acquired by major institutions around the world, affirming his significance both domestically and internationally. The present work thus displays the artist at the height of his powers.
1955-56 (umber + light red) reflects Nicholson’s evolving approach to relief painting. At first glance, it may appear to recall the Modernist purism of his work from the 1930s - Mondrianesque in its severity and precisely controlled interplay of geometric forms and flat colours, alongside a preference for the right angle as an ordering device - but on closer inspection one registers a distinct departure from that paradigm. There is an earthbound level of tactile, sensuous enjoyment in the variety of textures and muted colours, while the scraped and abraded surface evokes a sense of natural erosion. His sensitivity to materiality is evident; the paint appears integrated into the surface, suggesting an organic unity between medium and form.
On Nicholson’s reliefs of the 1950s, Jeremy Lewison wrote, ‘their surfaces have been scraped and sanded so that the paint appears inherent in the wood. This manner is distinctively different from the coloured reliefs of the 1930s where no attempt was made to disguise the fact that paint was applied to the support. A visit to Brittany in 1948, where he visited some of the Neolithic sites, had made a considerable impression. He observed standing stones weathered by age and scarred by the action of nature. The experience was not fully assimilated until the 1960s but in the reliefs of the 1950s it was beginning to manifest itself. Often pale and chalky, these works feel remarkably northern European when compared with the southern [reliefs]. Nicholson had an uncanny ability not only to suggest different geographies but also different climates’ (exhibition catalogue, Ben Nicholson, Hayama, Museum of Modern Art, 2004, p. 108).
Nicholson’s reliefs demonstrate a profound awareness of architecture and environmental influences. The subtle irregularities in his geometric forms - the slight distortions in circles and squares - create a tension between perfection and the organic, a quality associated with classical architecture. Furthermore, he takes a phenomenological approach where formal abstraction is imbued with an emotional and sensory resonance - a quality echoed in the work of contemporary St Ives artists, Patrick Heron and Paul Feiler. He believed that abstraction could distill the essence of experience, rather than merely imitate reality. Thus, by capturing the qualities of space and atmosphere rather than a direct depiction, he allows the viewer to engage with the sensation of a landscape. Nicholson himself noted that abstract art was not a retreat into an ‘ivory tower’ but rather a means of reconnecting art with everyday life (Ben Nicholson, ‘Notes on Abstract Art,’ Tate Archive, 1937-48, p. 1).
Like many of Nicholson’s works from the 1950s, 1955-56 (umber + light red) has passed through significant collections and exhibitions. It was exhibited at the Galerie de France in Paris in 1956 as the very first work in the exhibition and later in 1959 it toured galleries in Zürich, Hanover, Mannheim and Essen. As a product of his final years in Cornwall it represents a critical moment in Nicholson’s career, encapsulating a period of transition, personally and artistically. Not only does it bridge the severity of his earlier reliefs with the more atmospheric, texturally nuanced abstractions of his later years, but it marks the culmination of his engagement with the British landscape.