'1932 (Auberge de la Sole Dieppoise)', Ben Nicholson OM

Artwork details

Artist

Ben Nicholson OM (1894‑1982)

Title

1932 (Auberge de la Sole Dieppoise)

Date 1932

MediumOil paint, graphite and plaster on plywood

Dimensionssupport: 937 x 759 mm frame: 983 x 804 x 70 mm

Collection

Tate

Acquisition Presented by Mr and Mrs Michael Sacher through the Friends of the Tate Gallery 1967

Reference

T00944

Not on display

Display caption

Like 'St Rémy, Provence', this painting depicts the likeness of Barbara Hepworth, here reflected in the window of a modest hotel-restaurant. In the summer of 1932 Nicholson and Hepworth visited Braque in Dieppe. The use of words to emphasise the flatness of the picture surface was a device employed by Braque in works between 1910 and 1920, but the spareness of the composition and its lack of tangible objects was particular to Nicholson. The transparency of the forms is in stark contrast to the emphasis on the physical material of paint. Nicholson wrote that the ''roughness' of [this painting] is a forerunner of the first relief' made at the end of 1933.

August 2004