Ben Nicholson

1894 - 1982

Biography

Ben Nicholson was born in Buckinghamshire, UK, in 1894. Both his parents were artists, his father the poster designer Sir William Nicholson. Nicholson studied at the Slade School and travelled widely in Europe and the United States in his youth.

Ben Nicholson's work is now seen as the quintessence of British modernism. His austere geometric paintings and reliefs are among some of the most influential abstract works in British art.

Nicholson's early work consists of delicately worked still life pieces, which show the influence of his father. In the 1920's he began painting figurative and abstract works inspired by Post Impressionism and Cubism, which he had seen whilst travelling. His first one-man show was at the Adelphi Gallery in 1921.

Nicholson visit Paris numerous times in the 1930s during which he came into contact with many prolific artists such as In 1932 Picasso, Braque, Brancusi, Arp, Mondrian and Moholy-Nagy.

In 1937 he became editor of Circle, and from 1939 to 1958 lived in Cornwall with Barbara Hepworth, whom he married in 1938. His later work moved regularly between abstraction and figuration, always with cool, harmonious colours, subtle textures and precise interlocking shapes.

During the mid-40s he moved more toward abstract painting and was commissioned to paint a mural for the Time-Life Building in London in 1952. In 1954 he was given retrospective exhibitions at the Venice Biennale and at the Tate Gallery, London, and in 1955 the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Nicholson died in London in February 1982.

Images

February 26 1952 (lime green) 1952 Oil and pencil on canvas 33.5 x 43.5 cm © Angela Verren Taunt 2010. All rights reserved, DACS The depiction of artworks herein should not necessarily be considered an intimation of ownership

1949 (still life) 1949 Oil and pencil on panel 36.8 x 38.7 cm © Angela Verren Taunt 2010. All rights reserved, DACS The depiction of artworks herein should not necessarily be considered an intimation of ownership