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This artwork, September 1955 (Alcino) by Ben Nicholson, is currently for sale at Richard Green.
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TITLE:
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September 1955 (Alcino)
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CATEGORY:
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Paintings
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MATERIALS:
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Oil and pencil on pavatex
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MARKINGS:
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Signed Ben Nicholson, dated and inscribed ‘(Alcino) Sept 1955’ on the reverse
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SIZE:
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h: 121.9 x w: 152.4 cm / h: 48 x w: 60 in
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SIZE:
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Framed size: 130.2 x 160.7 cm / 51 ¼ x 63 ¼ in
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STYLE:
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Modern
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PRICE*:
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Contact Gallery for Price
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DESCRIPTION:
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Nicholson was offered a larger studio in 1949, No. 3 Porthmeor Studios, St Ives, which gave him the opportunity to work on a grander scale and a major series of still life paintings followed. The subtitle and warm palette of rich browns, lush green and pale yellow in this work call to mind a sun-drenched Italianate landscape, whose undulating hills are suggested through the transparent silhouette of a bottle or carafe. Nicholson visited Tuscany in October 1956 and travelled the year before to Rome, Sienna, Pienza, Chiusure, Assisi, St Quirico d’Orcia, Spello and Spoleto (see J. Lewison, Ben Nicholson, Tate Gallery Publishing, London, 1993, p. 247). The synthesis of still life and landscape subjects had been explored by Nicholson in various media, often based upon an intimate arrangement of objects before a window, framing the picture within a picture. The boundaries have been removed in these imposing works, the expansive landscape setting fusing with the large, white planes of the tilted table, over which is drawn the fluid, entwined outlines of a collection of vessels. Though pencil lines are also used to demarcate the segmented composition, the differentiation of surface treatment from sharply defined areas of colour to sections scrubbed and scraped back to the board, maintain a sense of receding and advancing planes, lending it the appearance of a shallow relief or marquetry. The horizontal spread of the linear still life objects is unified by a more diffuse tonal colouring, like evening light across the landscape/table.
Nicholson’s monumental still lifes of this decade brought him immediate international acclaim. August 1956 (Val d’Orcia) (Tate Gallery), won the First Guggenheim International Painting prize that year. He was also awarded first prize at the 39th Pittsburg International Exhibition at the Carnegie Institute in 1952, the Ulisse Prize at the Venice Biennale of 1954 and the International Prize for Painting at the 1957 São Paulo Biennial. The present work was selected by the British Council of Fine Arts for an exhibition of British Paintings held in Moscow and Leningrad in 1960, before touring America with exhibitions in Dallas, New York and Michigan later that decade.
Nicholson and Hepworth divorced in 1951.
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PROVENANCE:
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The artist
André Emmerich Gallery, New York, 1964 [10449]
Private Collection, Milwaukee, 1965, acquired from the above
Miriam Gantz Field, then by descent
Richard Green, London, 2007
Private collection, Europe, 2007
Richard Green, London
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LITERATURE:
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John Russell, Ben Nicholson: drawings, paintings and reliefs 1911–1968, Thames and Hudson, London, 1969, fig. 118, illustrated in colour
This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Ben Nicholson’s paintings and carved reliefs being prepared by Dr Lee Beard.
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EXHIBITION HISTORY:
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Zurich, Galerie Charles Lienhard, Ben Nicholson, 3rd January – 7th February, no. 25
Hannover, Kestner Gesellschaft, Ben Nicholson, 26th February – 5th April 1959, no. 45, illustrated
Mannheim, Städtische Kunsthalle, Ben Nicholson, 18th April – 18th May 1959, no. 45
Essen, Folkwang Museum, Ben Nicholson, 23rd July – 30th August 1959
Moscow, Pushkin Museum, then to Leningrad, The Hermitage Museum, organised by the British Council, Exhibition of British Painting 1720–1960, 1960, no. 110, illustrated
London, Gimpel Fils, Collectors’ choice X, March 1961, no. 24
Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Ben Nicholson Retrospective, 1964, no. 47
New York, André Emmerich Gallery/Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, Ben Nicholson: reliefs, oil washes and paintings 1955–65, April 1965, no. 2, illustrated in colour
Michigan, University of Michigan, Flint Institute of Arts, The first Flint Invitational: an exhibition of contemporary painting and sculpture, 4th November – 31st December, 1966
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