Ben Nicholson: 6 works

'Ben Nicholson was one of the few artists working in England who reacted to the art of Matisse, Braque and Picasso, which he saw on his visits to France in the 1920s. However, he also acknowledged the influence of his family; his mother, his uncle, as well as his father, William Nicholson, were all painters.'

'In the early 1920s, Ben Nicholson and his wife, Winifred, were staying with her parents at Boothby, near Brampton, while looking for their own home in Cumberland.'

'This and the use of lettering owe something to the Cubism of Braque and Picasso whose work Nicholson would have seen in Paris during visits to France in the 1920s.'

'For Porteus, Nicholson was headed towards the 'abyss of the absolute' and an outlook disinfected of human trace. (2) Nicholson was a prominent member of Unit One, a group of painters, sculptors and architects initially headed by Paul Nash.'

'It was made in St Ives when Ben Nicholson produced fewer of the abstract reliefs for which he was known. The brightly painted, flattened geometrical shapes in the centre relate to jug handles, glasses and bottles, and attest to Nicholson's interest in still life.'

'There is, unsurprisingly, a marked contrast in the use of colour and light between Nicholson's paintings in Cornwall, where he moved with his wife, Barbara Hepworth, at the start of World War II, and those painted in Cumberland in the north of England in the 1920s, which are dark, bright and rich. 11 November 1947 (Mousehole) typifies the palette for which Nicholson's landscapes became best known: pale, golden and ochre hues.'