Ben Nicholson

Durlacher Gallery, New York
H. Marc Moyens, Washington, D.C. (sold: Sotheby's, London, 3rd April 1990, lot 56)
Fujii Gallery, Tokyo (purchased at the above sale)
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, 3rd November 1993, lot 56
Purchased at the above sale by the late owner

London, The Lefevre Gallery, Ben Nicholson, 1952, no. 10
New York, Durlacher Gallery, Ben Nicholson, 1952, no. 3
Washington, D.C., The Corcoran Gallery of Art, The H. Marc Moyens Collection, 1969-70, no. 50, illustrated in the catalogue

Executed on board which is laid down on another board - this is the artist's original arrangement. There is no evidence of retouching under ultra-violet light. Apart from a very small surface abrasion in the lower left corner, this work is in very good condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although the yellow and ochre tones are less red and the blues are softer in the original.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

The beauty of the rugged landscape and picturesque fishing villages of Cornwall, where Nicholson moved in 1939, had an immediate impact upon his art, and remained an ever-present element in his iconography. 31 August 1951 (St. Ives Harbour, Summer) depicts the charming port of St. Ives as seen from the artist’s studio (fig. 2). In 1951 the Festival of Britain opened as a celebration of surviving the war and the great economic and cultural strides the country was making towards recovery. The Festival was formed out of a programme of exhibitions and events all over the country which had its climax in London in a vast display of national heritage, cutting edge design and art exhibited in purpose built buildings along the south bank of the Thames. Avant-garde artists Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth were commissioned to create works of art to adorn the new buildings, while Nicholson was invited to prepare a mural panel for the outside wall of a restaurant on the South Bank site. Nicholson met this opportunity with one of his strictest pieces of modernism to date – a vast two by six metre panel covered by crisply delineated forms and the barest minimum of colour. 1951 was also the year of the artist’s divorce from Barbara Hepworth and his subsequent move to a new house and studio called Trezion in St. Ives.

In 31 August 1951 (St. Ives Harbour, Summer) and other works from this period (fig. 1), Nicholson began to introduce a dual format to his compositions. By unifying an interior still-life with a distant view through the window and contrasting naïve figuration with abstraction, he succeeded in playing a sort of pictorial structure against another. As John Russell explains: ‘Around this time, Nicholson began to mix the genres: to combine, that is to say, landscape with still-life, and blend the two of them with the overlapping planes that survived from his first experience of synthetic cubism. He re-adjusted, also, the scale of these things: the tempo primo of the picture would be set by an enlarged playing-card, or an outsize version of one of his favourite jugs, or even by the disembodied handle of a jug. These are vestiges, again, of French painting: the open window theme, prime favourite of Matisse, was metamorphosed in terms of jug-scape, town-scape, and distant sea’ (J. Russell, Ben Nicholson, Drawings, Paintings and Reliefs, 1911-1968, London, 1969, p. 31).