Winifred Nicholson

LYC Museum and Art Gallery, Cumbria, 1979
Sale, Christie's London, 12th June 1998, lot 4
Crane Kalman Gallery, London, where acquired by the previous owners, November 1998, and thence by descent 

Cumbria, LYC Museum and Art Gallery, Paintings by an Octogenarian: The Latest Pictures of the Well-known Artist of Rural Cumbria, Winifred Nicholson, July 1979, (ex. cat.);
Cockermouth, Castlegate Gallery, Winifred Nicholson, A Cumbrian Perspective, 2005 (ex. cat.).

Oil on original canvas. The canvas appears sound. There is some craquelure in the more impasto areas of paint, most apparent in the painted flowers. There is some very light surface dirt and studio detritus across the work. Subject to the above, the work appears to be in good overall condition. Ultraviolet light reveals areas of fluorescence which indicates several spots of retouching along the upper horizontal edge, and a further few small flecks of retouching in the upper right quadrant, all of which have been sensitively executed. There are some further areas of florescence in the white pigment which appear to be consistent with the artist's materials. The work is housed in a simple painted wooden frame. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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We are grateful to Jovan Nicholson for his kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work.

For a long time Winifred Nicholson had been interested in prisms and the way they refracted light, writing as early as 1944: 'The prism discovers for me how form is related to colour – colour is not just a coat over objects – it lies on the rim of objects between one form and the neighbour form or space. It can be flame red, or electric blue – whichever way you turn the prism. It’s a miracle to look through a prism – almost too bright and vivid – unlimited colour shine to select – and after you have been working through it, it’s wonderful to look back at the sober even real world – with all its quietude.' (Winifred Nicholson quoted in Andrew Nicholson, (ed.), Unknown Colour, Paintings, Letters, Writings by Winifred Nicholson, Faber and Faber, London, 1987, p.219).

But it was not until the mid-1970s that she began to fully experiment will prisms and bring her ideas to fruition. By looking through a prism the unity of light by 'prismatic action can be broken into its component rays, each one a distinct colour. Red, orange, green, blue, violet – a scale line ascending and descending from red hot to violet cold.' (op. cit. pp.99). And so doing she made a great discovery: 'I found out what flowers know, how to divide the colours as prisms do, into longer and shorter wavelengths, and in so doing giving the luminosity and brilliance of pure colour – in the ordered sequence of the octave of colour'. (Winifred Nicholson, (ed.), Unknown Colour, Paintings, Letters, Writings by Winifred Nicholson, Faber and Faber, London, 1987, p.259).

Winifred Nicholson waited to reveal these new ‘prismatic’ pictures to an audience, except for a few instances, until her exhibition at the Crane Kalman Gallery, London in 1981. One such exception was Plant for a Present which she exhibited at the LYC Museum and Art Gallery in Cumbria in July 1979 alongside the white cape primrose, or Streptocarpus, which it depicts.

As she wrote in the catalogue, 'Those of us who stay on here – do we grow mossy like Wordsworth? – or have we still a song to sing that you would like to hear? Whether you do or don’t painting is fun for itself. Why do you not paint? You have a painting song in your seeing. Why does not everybody paint?'

Jovan Nicholson