Ben Nicholson O.M.

(British, 1894-1982)

Involved Still Life 43.5 x 37.6 cm. (17 1/8 x 14 3/4 in.)

Footnotes

Provenance
With Galerie Schlégl, Zurich, where acquired by the present owner
Private Collection, South Africa

The pared-back simplicity yet ultimate sophistication and balance of Ben Nicholson's work is his supreme achievement. In the present work, where pencil and wash are layered over a printed base, the eye is led through and over a multiplicity of undulating lines, which weave together, intermingle and then depart again, swinging out and over the margins of the plate mark. For a 'still life', the composition is remarkably dynamic and encourages the viewer's gaze to rove around the image, never settling, always finding new rhythms to follow.

Still life was a recurrent subject for Nicholson, one he returned to time and time again, and Involved Still Life is an example of the most refined realisation of his constant study of this subject, a synthesis of form and abstraction. The title is subtle yet says so much: it calls the viewer in to the subject, and we feel the movement that he has captured. Using the simple motif of two vessels, Nicholson nevertheless manages to create a composition which plays with space and creates an incredible depth.

Cubism was an important influence for Nicholson and the multiplicity of lines that he has used here gives a sense of this all-over, all-at-once viewing. The use of several perspectives has the effect of recalling the experience and memory of the object, not just its image. As Nicholson commented: 'Cubism once discovered could not be undiscovered, and so far from being that 'passing phase' so longed for by reactionaries it (and all that its discovery implied) has been absorbed into human experience as we know it today' (Ben Nicholson, quoted in Ben Nicholson: A Retrospective Exhibition, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1955, n.p.). The result is a method of drawing which rises above the purely representational and becomes experiential.

The base for the present work is an example of the etching 2 Sculptural Forms (1967) from the Twelve Etchings suite, a copy of which is in the Tate's collection.