Room guide
Gallery 1: 1920s
In the early 1920s, Ben Nicholson abandoned the dark realism he had inherited from his father, the successful Edwardian painter William Nicholson. He experimented with cruder, less polished forms of representation. From landscape and still-life subjects he abstracted formal compositions until, in 1924, he made a few totally non-representational paintings. In fact, even these derived from still-life arrangements. They were short-lived.
In 1923 Nicholson and his first wife, Winifred, acquired a house in Cumberland. The landscape there became a major preoccupation. By 1928 he achieved a faux-naïve style which was validated that summer when he encountered the self-taught, amateur painter Alfred Wallis in St Ives in Cornwall.
For several years paintings of the northern border country and its white-painted farms were interspersed with Cornish sea views; Wallis-like ships taking the place of the Cumberland horses. Just as Wallis's paintings were seen as evidence of an innocent and authentic vision, so these simple landscapes might stand for a yearning for a lost rustic simplicity.
Works displayed in this room
- 1921 - circa 1923 (Cortivallo, Lugano)
Oil and pencil on canvas
Tate. Purchased with assistance from The Art Fund and the Friends of the Tate Gallery 1989 - 1922 (bread)
Oil on canvas
Tate. Purchased from funds provided by the Patrons of British Art 2003 - 1922 (Cold Fell)
Oil on canvas
On loan from Abbot Hall Gallery, Kendal, Cumbria - 1923 (Dymchurch)
Oil on canvas
Private Collection - 1924 (first abstract painting, Chelsea)
Oil and pencil on canvas
Tate. Accepted by H.M. Government in lieu of tax and allocated to the Tate Gallery 1986 - 1925 (Banks Head looking east)
Oil on canvas
Private Collection - 1928 (foothills, Cumberland)
Oil on canvas
Tate. Presented by Miss D. Noyes and Miss E. Noyes 1950 - 1928 (Walton Wood cottage No.1) (aka Cumbrian landscape (version 1))
Oil on canvas
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh - 1928 (Pill Creek, moonlight)
Oil and pencil on canvas
Private Collection - 1928 (Porthmeor Beach, St Ives)
Oil and pencil on canvas
Private Collection - 1928 (Pill Creek)
Oil and pencil on canvas
Private Collection - 1928 (Cumberland landscape - Walton Wood cottage No 2)
Oil on canvas
Private collection - 1929 (Kingswater Valley, Cumberland)
Oil on canvas
Private Collection - 1929 (Holmhead, Cumberland)
Oil and pencil on canvas
Private Collection - 1930 (Hare Hill)
Oil on canvas
Private Collection - c.1930 (Cornish port)
Oil on card
Kettle's Yard, University of Cambridge - 1930 (Birch Craig, winter)
Oil on canvas
Private Collection - 1930 (Porthmeor window - looking out to sea)
Oil and pencil on canvas
Private Collection - 1931 (St Ives Bay, sea with boats)
Oil and pencil on canvas
Manchester City Galleries