Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1539834
BEN NICHOLSON (1894-1982) St. Ives, 1940 Oil on board Signed 'Ben Nicholson', titled 'St. Ives' and dated '1940', verso 32 x 39 cm (12 ½ x 15 ¼ in) Provenance Cyril S. Reddihough, thence by descent Private Collection, UK Exhibited The Arts Council of Great Britain, The Artist and the Sea, 1953/54, cat. no. 55 London, The Tate Gallery, St. Ives, 13 February – 14 April 1985, cat. no. 62 Edinburgh, The Scottish Arts Council, Alfred Wallis, Christopher Wood, Ben Nicholson, April 1987; this exhibition travelled to Stromness, Pier Arts Centre, May 1987; Aberdeen, Art Gallery and Museums, June 1987; Stirling, Smith Art Gallery and Museum, August 1987; and Cambridge, Kettle's Yard, September – October 1987. Kobe, Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, St. Ives, 8 April – 7 May 1989, p. 59, cat. no.27 (ill. col.); this exhibition travelled to Kamakura, The Museum of Modern Art, May – June 1989; and Tokyo, Setagaya Art Museum, July – August 1989. Cornwall, Tate St. Ives, A Continuous Line: Ben Nicholson in England, 24 January – 4 May 2009; this exhibition travelled to Abbot Hall, Kendall and De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea. Literature Herbert Read, Ben Nicholson: Paintings, Reliefs, Drawings, Volume I (Second Edition), Lund Humphries, London, 1955, pl. 113 (ill. b&w) While some artists' work rose and fell in Ede's affection, Ben Nicholson's scarcely faltered. Having visited his exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery in 1930, Ede wrote: We were more than ever ravished by your ptgs today – David [Jones] & I went away saying that there were no paintings but Ben's! They are the sort of things I just want to have near me – to enjoy & talk with – they are lovable like you for they are you. The biggest one got me strong today and – well I'd here have to list a dozen! 1 The works by Ben Nicholson at Kettle's Yard – over fifty drawings, prints, reliefs, paintings and textiles, ranging in date from 1923 to 1967 – include still lifes, land- and seascapes, musical instruments, goblets and lean, architectural drawings made in Italy. The tiny, colourful 1934 august-september (massine ballet study) was a favourite, sketched by Ede in a wartime letter to show its inclusion in his own 'still life': propped against a glass goblet, with Californian pebbles and a grey-and-white Wallis nearby. 2 There were others that Ede borrowed, exchanged, or sold to buy more recent works. Ede regretted not being able to afford Ben's larger paintings in the 1960s, or his reliefs in the 1970s for (even though 'the money I left … was for just such a purchase'). 3 He continued, in 1975, Heavens how grateful I have always been … through these last 50 years, for the joy you have constantly given to me in your work – it's a living & vital force & has, in depth, coloured everything I do. 4 A year later, after a litany describing works that 'glowed' in an exhibition catalogue, Ede reached 1975 (one curve – one circle), writing: I'd have made Kettles Yard for that – the juxtaposition of tones & the beauty of space cries out in me. … Bless you always for giving so much and so deeply … these works have the fantastic rightness of a pebble on the shore – a very special pebble of course – & I can't say more. 5 Lower extension with several works by Ben Nicholson above the table. Photograph Paul Allitt, 2011. © Courtesy Kettle's Yard. 1 Ede, letter to Ben Nicholson, 6 March 1930, Tate Archive, TGA 8717/1/2/866. 2 Ede, letter to Ben Nicholson, Good Friday, Tate Archive, TGA 8717/1/2/900/1. 3 Ede, letter to Ben Nicholson, 23 March 1975, Tate Archive, TGA 8717/1/2/1016. 4 ibid. 5 Ede, letter to Ben Nicholson, 16 July 1976, Tate Archive, TGA 8717/1/2/1020. 76