Ben Nicholson OM

Feb 2-54

1954

© Angela Verren Taunt 2019. All rights reserved, DACS

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In Tate Modern

Artist and Society: A view from São Paulo: Abstraction and Society

Free entry

Artist: Ben Nicholson OM 1894–1982
Medium: Oil paint and graphite on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 733 x 803 mm
frame: 790 x 860 x 59 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Bequeathed by Miss E.M. Hodgkins 1977
Reference: T02221

Display caption

This painting is typical of Nicholson's still lifes of the early fifties with its overlapping forms, often transparent, but given body by accents of colour or pencil shading. The construction of these paintings is a development from his works of the mid-thirties in which Nicholson allowed the forms of earlier paintings to penetrate later reworkings. The surface has been rubbed down repeatedly and, in common with many other such works of the period, is smooth. The colour is applied both relatively freely in thin washes and precisely and opaquely. Nicholson received the Ulisse Award at the Venice Biennale later in 1954.

Gallery label, August 2004

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Catalogue entry

T02221 FEB 2–54 1954

Inscribed on top turnover of canvas ‘Feb 2–54 Ben Nicholson’, and on top stretcher bar ‘Feb 2’
Oil and pencil on canvas, 38 1/2 × 22 7/8 (97.8 × 58.1)
Bequeathed by Miss E. M. Hodgkins 1977
Exh: Spring Exhibition, Penwith Gallery, St Ives, March 1954 (5).

Painted in St Ives.

Published in:
The Tate Gallery 1976-8: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London 1979