Penny Day
Head of UK and Ireland
Lot 17AR
Ben Nicholson O.M.(British, 1894-1982)San Gimignano (Crescent Moon) Feb 14-51 21.8 x 36.5 (8 5/8 x 14 3/8 in.) (including the artist's prepared backboard)
15 June 2016, 15:00 BST
London, New Bond StreetSold for £104,500 inc. premium
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Christopher Dawson
Head of Department
Ingram Reid
Director
Ben Nicholson O.M. (British, 1894-1982)
San Gimignano (Crescent Moon) Feb 14-51
signed twice, inscribed and dated 'San Gimignano (crescent moon) Feb 14-51/Ben Nicholson/NICHOLSON/5 Porthmeor Studios/St Ives/belonging to/C S Reddihough' (verso)
pencil and oil on board
21.8 x 36.5 (8 5/8 x 14 3/8 in.) (including the artist's prepared backboard)
signed twice, inscribed and dated 'San Gimignano (crescent moon) Feb 14-51/Ben Nicholson/NICHOLSON/5 Porthmeor Studios/St Ives/belonging to/C S Reddihough' (verso)
pencil and oil on board
21.8 x 36.5 (8 5/8 x 14 3/8 in.) (including the artist's prepared backboard)
Footnotes
Provenance
The Artist, from whom acquired by
C.S. Reddihough
Exhibited
London, Lefevre Gallery, Ben Nicholson, May 1952, cat.no.3
Venice, The XXVII Biennale, The British Pavilion, exhibition of works by Nicholson, Bacon, Freud, 1954, cat.no.25
Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Ben Nicholson, Winter 1954-55, cat.no.33
Paris, Musée National D'Art Moderne, Ben Nicholson, 21 January-20 February 1955, cat.no.33; 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.45
Hanover, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Ben Nicholson, 17 April-17 May, 1959, cat.no.35; this exhibition travelled to Mannheim, Stadtische Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Kunstverein and Essen, Museum Folkwang
London, The Tate Gallery, Ben Nicholson, 19 June-27 July 1969
Literature
'Studio', June 1952, p.185 (ill.)
Ben Nicholson, Ben Nicholson, Volume 2, Lund Humphries, London, 1956, pl.122 (ill.b&w)
Peter Khoroche, Ben Nicholson; Drawings and Painted Reliefs, Lund Humphries, Farnham, 2002, p.61, pl.43 (col.ill.)
Another drawing of a view from a balcony, this time Reddihough's, inspired a romantic little painting, made some months after Nicholson returned from Italy ... This densely packed composition of close-up still life ambiguously merging into architecture, of mediaeval tower and distant landscape, all under the sign of a crescent moon, might almost bring to mind a painting by Samuel Palmer, such is its richness of colour, its mottled texture and, above all, its intensity of the drawing that is its basis. This painting was in turn the basis for an etching Nicholson made in 1967. (Peter Khoroche, Ben Nicholson; Drawings and Painted Reliefs, Lund Humphries, Farnham, 2002, p.61).
