Research Point: Ben Nicholson

Ben Nicholson was strongly influenced by his father's work - William Nicholson, the painter and woodcut artist - and began his artistic pursuit by painting still lifes of fairly ordinary household objects, a subject that would remain faithful to his lifelong career. He had the good fortune to meet some very inspiring people in his time including Mondrian, Picasso and Braque. These heavyweights of the art world left a lasting impression on Nicholson, as you can see clearly in his work - the primitive, abstract reliefs he began to create in the 1930s, and much later the Cubist style still life paintings of his father's vast collection of interesting glassware and crockery.

                                   

In the stimulating times of the 1930s he became affiliated with a group of artists and architects who felt so strongly in favour of the principles of Constructivism in the world around them that they wrote a 'survey' about it. Nicholson, among others, edited "Circle", a pioneering piece or modern art literature that promoted a lack of ornamental art and followed the conventions of mathematical precision and clean lines.

                                     

It was these principles that carried him through the long years of World War II and encouraged him to paint his series of works based on the Cornish countryside. He would overlay his scenic view with the simple shapes of jugs or cups, etc creating an unusual mix of abstract still life and landscape painting. His love and dependency on these familiar but lovely everyday items stretched across his career and gave him constant inspiration to create. He died in 1982 after having moved back to his childhood home town of London.