Ben Nicholson OM

1945 (still life)

1945

In Tate St Ives

Modern Art and St Ives: War, Austerity and the Modern Spirit 1940–50

Artist: Ben Nicholson OM 1894–1982
Medium: Oil paint and graphite on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 838 × 660 mm
frame: 867 × 690 × 61 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1945
Reference: N05626

Display caption

In 1945 Nicholson returned to the subject of table-top still lifes, producing a series of works in which the foreground objects and background are compressed. In this picture the combination of subtle shades and tones with more vivid white and scarlet, is typical of the range of colours he favoured in the early post-war period. The colour contrasts are used to help define the individual shapes of the densely-grouped still life objects, within the overall very abstract composition.

Gallery label, August 2004

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Catalogue entry

N05626 STILL LIFE 1945

Inscr. ‘Ben Nicholson 1945’ on turnover of canvas.
Canvas, 33×26 (84×66).
Purchased from the artist through the Lefevre Gallery (Knapping Fund) 1945.
Exh: Lefevre Gallery, October 1945 (41).
Repr: Robin Ironside, Painting since 1939, 1947, facing p.20; Read, I, 1948, pl.158.

For a later, more abstract, treatment of this theme see T00051 below.

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