Ben Nicholson. Still life, (1947).

Ben Nicholson
Still life, (1947)
Tempera and pencil on board
7 1/2 x 7 1/8 in. (19 x 18 cm)
Acquired 1947 from Curt Valentine Gallery
(L01280-85)

The following is an excerpt from: Miller Company Collection of Abstract Art. (1948). Painting toward architecture, p. 90. [Essay by Henry-Russell Hitchcock; foreword by Alfred H. Barr, Jr.; introduction by Burton Tremaine; acknowledgements by Emily Hall Tremaine, art director; certain artwork entries by Mary Chalmers Rathbun; graphic design by Bradbury Thompson].

"In the ’40s Nicholson’s style has developed into a freer and more poetic vehicle of expression. Instead of being merely the boundaries of rectangles or circles his lines now have a freehand character and are even subtly varied in thickness so that they have something of the lyric quality of early British linear art. The areas of solid color are more lively in hue and seem to float against the atmospheric mottling of the surrounding space. Nicholson’s colors were never as restricted as Mondrian’s, and the textured materials in some of his reliefs were already less absolute than the smooth white plaster with which he first worked. But in his later work, such as the composition of last year, there is a good deal of the richness and modulation of tone of the English landscape tradition."

The current location of Ben Nicholson’s Still life (1947) is unknown.

To learn more about Ben Nicholson’s Still life, (1947) since 1947, click the link(s) to article and exhibition compilations with documentation below.