Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/504747
4 Although considered the quintessence of British modernism, Ben Nicholson's work can only be fully understood within the context of international abstraction. Travelling widely, Nicholson engaged with movements across Europe and beyond, including Cubism, Minimalism and Arte Povera. As he moved between London, Cornwall and Switzerland he engaged with the constantly changing face of modern art with the aim of creating what he termed "a powerful, unlimited and universal language". Nicholson began his career as a painter of traditional still lifes and landscapes. Early on he was influenced by his father, the painter and graphic artist Sir William Nicholson: "I owe a lot to my father - especially his poetic ideal and his still-life theme". Included in the exhibition will be a number of Nicholson's still life drawings, which show his fascination with "the beautiful striped and spotted jugs and mugs and goblets" which his father collected. Both the objects and the evocative stillness of his father's paintings appear in masterfully drawn compositions such as March 1960 (S. Coffee pot). However, during frequent trips to Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, Nicholson began to move towards abstraction. After seeing the work of Picasso and developing a close friendship with Braque, he was drawn to Cubism. He soon began to assimilate into his own still lifes Cubist devices such as intersecting forms and flattened pictorial space through the blurring of conventional distinctions between foreground and background. The influence of Cubism remained with Nicholson throughout his career and is evident even in his dynamic drawings from the 1960s and 1970s, such as Sept. 1960 and Sculptured forms two, 1978. It was in Paris that he also met other leading modernist artists of the day. He joined the group Ab- straction-Création in 1933, alongside Hélion, Mondrian, Herbin and Arp, and in the following years became the principal link between abstraction in mainland Europe and the UK. One of the highlights of the exhibition is Painting, 1939 which shows Nicholson and Mondrian's close relationship at this time. In 1938 Nicholson persuaded Mondrian to move to London with him and they worked in neighbouring studios in Hampstead. Both artists explored the interplay between abstraction and representation within their increasingly geometric, minimal and harmonious compositions. In 1958 Nicholson left the UK and moved to Switzerland, settling near Lake Maggiore with the photographer Felicitas Vogler. Both the change of location and his status as an international artist, living and working in the heart of Europe, had a dramatic impact upon his practice. It was during