Ben Nicholson OM

1928 (foothills, Cumberland)

1928

© Angela Verren Taunt 2020. All rights reserved, DACS

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In Tate Britain

Walk Through British Art: 1910

Free entry

Artist: Ben Nicholson OM 1894–1982
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 559 × 686 mm
frame: 700 × 826 × 73 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by Miss D. Noyes and Miss E. Noyes 1950
Reference: N05951

Display caption

During the 1920s, Ben and Winifred Nicholson lived in a house close to Hadrian’s Wall in Cumberland. Their lifestyle was simple and traditional; they shared at that time a belief in Christian Science. In their art too they sought to escape the sophistication of established artists, including Ben’s father William Nicholson. Painting mostly landscape, they cultivated a deliberately naïve style which was reinforced by an encounter in 1928 with the untutored amateur painter Alfred Wallis.

Gallery label, September 2016

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Catalogue entry

N05951 FOOTHILLS, CUMBERLAND 1928

Not inscribed.
Canvas, 22×27 (56×68·5).
Presented by Miss Dora and Miss Ella Noyes 1950.
Coll: There is a Lefevre Gallery label on the back but the work seems to have been purchased direct from the artist by the donors (information supplied by the Lefevre Gallery).
Exh: (?) Paintings by Ben and Winifred Nicholson and Pottery by Staite Murray, Lefevre Gallery, July 1928 (5), as ‘Foothills’.
Repr: Hodin, 1957, pl.6.

One of a group of Cumbrian landscapes painted c. 1928–30, e.g. Read, I, 1948, pls.23, 25, 31, 39 and 40; this example was painted in 1928.

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II