Ben Nicholson O.M.

(British, 1894-1982)

May 1950 (Early Morning from San Gimignano) 36.8 x 51.8 cm. (14 1/2 x 21 1/4 in.)

Footnotes

Provenance
The Artist, from whom acquired by
C.S. Reddihough

Exhibited
London, Lefevre Gallery, Recent paintings 1949-50 by Ben Nicholson, October 1950, cat.no.52
Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Ben Nicholson, Winter 1954-55, cat.no.69
Paris, Musée National D'Art Moderne, Ben Nicholson, 21 January-20 February 1955, cat.no.69; this exhibition travelled to Brussels, Palais Des Beaux-Arts, 3-27 March and Zurich, Kunsthaus, 20-April-22 May
London, The Tate Gallery, Ben Nicholson: A retrospective exhibition, June-July 1955, cat.no.70
Hanover, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Ben Nicholson, 26 February-5 April, 1959, cat.no.35
Zurich, Galerie Charles Lienhard, Ben Nicholson, 3 January-7 February 1959, cat.no.16 (catalogue untraced)
London, The Tate Gallery, Ben Nicholson, 19 June-27 July 1969, cat.no79 (ill.b&w, p.48)
London, The Tate Gallery, St Ives 1939-64, Twenty Five Years of Painting, Sculpture and Pottery, 13 February-14 April 1985, cat.no.13
London, The Tate Gallery, Ben Nicholson, 13 October 1993-9 January 1994, cat.no.93; this exhibition travelled to St Etienne, Musée d'Art Moderne, 10 February-25 April

Literature
Ben Nicholson, Ben Nicholson, Volume 2, Lund Humphries, London, 1956, pl.66 (ill.b&w)
Jeremy Lewison, Ben Nicholson, The Tate Gallery, London, 1993, p.227 (ill.b&w)
Norbert Lynton, Ben Nicholson, Phaidon, London, 1993, p.247, pl.233 (col.ill.)
Peter Khoroche, Ben Nicholson; Drawings and Painted Reliefs, Lund Humphries, Farnham, 2002, p.58, pl.40 (ill.b&w)

A real commitment to drawing was clinched the following spring, 1950, when Nicholson went on the first of many drawing trips to Italy. After years of wartime isolation and post-war deprivation, the impulse to go south was widely felt among the English, who yearned for the warmth and sunlight of the Mediterranean. But Nicholson's journey was at least as much due to the urging of his friend, Cyril Reddihough, who arranged it all. Reddihough had met Nicholson at Banks Head in 1927 and soon became one of his most important patrons, together with Helen Sutherland and Leslie Martin. He had quickly discerned the special qualities of Nicholson's drawing – his sense of space-proportion, his ability to suggest solid form by the most exactly inflected line, his ruthless omission of some details and often humorous emphasis of others – and felt that it showed sides of his temperament – perky humour, spontaneity, a sense of drama – that were less evident in his paintings and reliefs.

And so together they set off from London on 11 May, crossing over to Dunkirk and then heading south, through France and Switzerland, to Italy. They decided they would explore the towns of Tuscany – Pisa, Lucca, Volterra, Siena and Arezzo – making San Gimignano their base. Here, in the Hotel La Cisterna, Nicholson found an attic whose window was on a level with one of the mediaeval towers for which the town is famous, and from it made a drawing. He had once told Paul Nash that he judged paintings by the quality of light they gave off, and he might well have applied the same criterion to his own drawings. In 'May 22 1950 (early morning from San Gimignano)', for instance, he captures the effect of dawn in springtime by the subtle placing of white highlights in the overall tonality of pale grey. The shifting perspectives of taut lines in the foreground roofscape, played off, as usual, against the free-flowing lines of the landscape background, produces a feeling of movement – smooth, yet changing in speed – like that of a Calder mobile. (Peter Khoroche, Ben Nicholson; Drawings and Painted Reliefs, Lund Humphries, Farnham, 2002, pp.56-59).