Ben Nicholson O.M.

(British, 1894-1982)

Jan 29-48 (Towednack) 51.7 x 54 cm. (20 1/4 x 21 1/4 in.) (including the artist's prepared backboard)

Footnotes

Provenance
C.S. Reddihough

Exhibited
London, Lefevre Gallery, Ben Nicholson, May 1952, cat.no.1
London, The Tate Gallery, Ben Nicholson: A retrospective exhibition, June-July 1955, cat.no.43 (ill.b&w)
Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Ben Nicholson, Winter 1954-55, cat.no.29
Paris, Musée National D'Art Moderne, Ben Nicholson, 21 January-20 February 1955, cat.no.29; this exhibition travelled to Brussels, Palais Des Beaux-Arts, 3-27 March and Zurich, Kunsthaus, 20 April-22 May
São Paulo, Museu de Arte Moderna, IV Bienal, Paintings by Ben Nicholson: Sculpture and drawings by Robert Adams et al, organised by the British Council, 1958, cat.no.22; this exhibition travelled to Buenos Aires, Museo Nacional de Ballas Artes, Buenos Aires, 1958
London, The Tate Gallery, St Ives 1939-64, Twenty Five Years of Painting, Sculpture and Pottery, 13 February-14 April 1985, cat.no.85 (ill.b&w)
Orkney, Pier Arts Centre, Alfred Wallis, Christopher Wood, Ben Nicholson, organised by the Scottish Arts Council, 2-30 May 1987; this exhibition travelled to Aberdeen, Art Gallery and Museums, 6-27 June, Stirling, Smith Art Gallery and Museum, 11 July-30 August and Cambridge, Kettle's Yard, 12 September-18 October, 1987
Hyogo, Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, St. Ives, 8 April-7 May 1989 (catalogue not traced); this exhibition travelled to Kamakura, Museum of Modern Art, 20 May-25 June 1989 and Setagaya, Art Museum, 2 July-27 August

Literature
Ben Nicholson, Ben Nicholson, Volume 2, Lund Humphries, London, 1956, pl.4 (ill.b&w)
J.P. Hodin, Ben Nicholson, The Meaning of His Art, Alec Tiranti, London, 1957, pl.41 (ill.b&w)
Ronald Alley, Ben Nicholson, Beaverbrook Newspapers Limited, London, 1962, unnumbered (col.ill., on the cover)
Norbert Lynton, Ben Nicholson, Phaidon, London, 1993, p.226, pl.210 (col.ill.)

Extensively exhibited across the globe, from The Tate Gallery in London to The Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo and the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, among others, Jan 29-48 (Towednack) is a key painting from the body of work produced by Ben Nicholson during the 1940s. Following his departure from London shortly before the outbreak of war in 1939 with his second wife Barbara Hepworth, Nicholson settled in Cornwall. Initially the artists stayed with the painter and writer Adrian Stokes at Carbis Bay and attempted to persuade their London friend and pioneer of abstract art, Piet Mondrian, to join them. Mondrian had been a source of much inspiration to Nicholson in Hampstead throughout the 1930s, whilst the latter artist was pushing his boundaries of abstraction to its maximum, but decided instead to emigrate to New York in 1940. Between late 1939 and 1942 the Nicholsons lived in their Carbis Bay house 'Dunluce', but the lack of studio space encouraged them to move again in September 1942, this time to 'Chy-an-Kerris', still in Carbis Bay. The name of the Nicholsons' home has been inscribed in pencil in the artist's handwriting on the backboard of Jan 29-48 (Towednack) as they were still living there at the time this sublime painting was made. Towednack is a small village, easily accessible from where the Nicholsons lived, and situated just two miles inland from St.Ives.

The two themes of landscape and still life had pre-occupied Nicholson during his formative years in the 1920s, before abstraction had asserted its control in the 1930s. With the move to Cornwall, however, Nicholson began to embrace the surroundings of his new home and incorporate them into his work. A number of these landscapes in the 1940s introduce the still life element as well. Particularly successful pictures include 1944 (still life and Cornish landscape) (IBM Gallery of Science and Art) and November 11-47 (Mousehole) (The British Council). In both of these oils, along with Jan 29-48 (Towednack), the still life dominates the space of the foreground as if positioned on a window ledge. This is emphasised in varying degrees by the inclusion of pronounced horizontal pencil lines separating the interior and exterior areas. Gentle, lightly shaded pencil work has also been used to indicate curtains reinforcing the interior viewpoint. In the present lot these appear on the far left of the composition and cleverly run through as well as behind the rolling green hills of the distant landscape so that the viewer begins to doubt their precise positioning. With this technique Nicholson creates an optical illusion, first explored by Georges Braque in his cubist works, that throws the fields forward to become part of the still life and keeps the spectator absorbed in attempting to fathom its mysteries. Although the cups and goblets fill the lower half of the composition they do not detract from the landscape beyond. This has been achieved by Nicholson scraping back the paint, over the objects, in places with a razor blade to reveal the white ground beneath; they are devoid of colour, unlike the farm buildings, fields and sea beyond which have been blocked in with pigments that were specific to his work in the mid-1940s. The overall whiteness of the image helps to accentuate the brilliance of light that so attracted artists to the Cornish headland.

Jan 29-48 (Towednack) is illustrated on the front cover of Ronald Alley's 1962 book on Ben Nicholson. This is a piece of literature which also generously reproduces a number of other Reddihough Nicholsons. Of the front cover painting Alley remarks;

The difference in style between the very flat still-life objects in the foreground and the more realistic and spacious landscape behind is still very marked, and the artist's problem was clearly to integrate these two contrasting sections. He had to prevent the landscape becoming, as it so easily could, a separate picture on its own – like a second painting on a wall behind the still life. This he has managed to do, first, by making the still life neutral and unobtrusive; and, second, by subtly linking foreground and background shapes and by giving the picture and overall rhythm. The effect is delicate and refreshing. Moreover, the picture, for all its stylisation, gives a vivid impression of the appearance of West Cornwall and especially of the quality of the light there, which is exceptionally pure and white. (Ronald Alley, Ben Nicholson, Beaverbrook Newspapers, London, 1962, pages not numbered).