Nicholson, Ben

Nicholson, Ben

▪ British artist
born April 10, 1894, Denham, Buckinghamshire, England
died February 6, 1982, London

      English artist whose austere geometric paintings and reliefs were among the most influential abstract works in British art.

      The son of the painter Sir William Nicholson, he briefly attended the Slade School of Fine Art in London in 1910–11, but he was largely self-taught. He traveled extensively in Europe between 1911 and 1914, and in 1917 he visited California, keeping a detailed record in sketches of architecture and landscape. About 1920 he began to paint seriously, creating still lifes and landscapes in a conventionally realistic style.

      During a trip to Paris in 1921, Nicholson saw Cubist (Cubism) works, which influenced his first semiabstract still lifes; in 1924 he executed his first completely abstract painting. During the 1920s, along with the sculptors Barbara Hepworth (Hepworth, Dame Barbara) (who became his second wife) and Henry Moore (Moore, Henry), Nicholson was instrumental in introducing Continental Modernism into English art. In 1933 he and Hepworth joined the Paris-based Abstraction-Création group, an artists' association that advocated purely abstract art. He also met the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian (Mondrian, Piet), under whose influence Nicholson's work took on a greatly simplified geometry; typical of this period are his low reliefs of whitewashed circles and rectangles, such as White Relief (1937–38). He was coeditor with the artist Naum Gabo (Gabo, Naum) and the architect Sir Leslie Martin of Circle, a manifesto published in 1937 to promote Constructivism and other modern art styles in England.

      In the 1940s Nicholson returned to landscape and still-life themes, often painting simplified representations of still-life motifs within otherwise largely abstract compositions. In his later work he continued to shift between modes of abstraction and representation.

Additional Reading
Heavily illustrated volumes of Nicholson's works include Herbert E. Read, Ben Nicholson, 2 vol. (1955; 2nd ed. of vol. 1 [first published 1948]); and Jeremy Lewison, Ben Nicholson (1991). Norbert Lynton, Ben Nicholson (1993), and Sarah Jane Checkland, Ben Nicholson: The Vicious Circles of His Life and Art (2000), are biographies.

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно сделать НИР?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • NICHOLSON (BEN) — Ben NICHOLSON 1894 1982 L’œuvre du peintre anglais Ben Nicholson, synthèse de réalisme et d’abstraction, alliance entre la géométrie et l’observation sensible, s’écarte des tendances continentales autant qu’elle s’y réfère. Sa maturation a été… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • Nicholson, Ben —    b. 1894, Denham, Buckinghamshire; d. 1982    Painter    The son of the Victorian painter William Nicholson, Ben Nicholson was one of the best known British painters of the twentieth century and a pioneer of abstract art. His early work… …   Encyclopedia of contemporary British culture

  • Nicholson,Ben — Nich·ol·son (nĭkʹəl sən), Ben. 1894 1982. British painter known for his Cubist still lifes and abstract geometric landscapes. * * * …   Universalium

  • Nicholson, Ben — ► (1894 1982) Pintor británico. Evolucionó hacia una abstracción lírica y personal. Autor de Sevenbark y Relieve …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Ben Nicholson — Portrait of Ben Nicholson by Mabel Pryde, circa 1910 1914 Birth name Benjamin Lauder Nicholson Born 12 Ap …   Wikipedia

  • Ben Nicholson — [Ben Nicholson] (1894–1982) an English artist who was one of the first in Britain to produce ↑abstract paintings (= ones that arrange shapes and colours in a satisfying way instead of showing things in a realistic way). His second wife was… …   Useful english dictionary

  • Nicholson — Nicholson, Ben Nicholson, Jack …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Ben Nicholson — Pour les articles homonymes, voir Nicholson. Ben Nicholson, Mabel Pryde, circa 1910 1914 Ben Nicholson est un peintre britannique né le …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Ben Nicholson — Ben Nicholson, Mabel Pryde, zirka 1910 1914 Ben Nicholson (* 10. April 1894 in Denham in der Grafschaft Buckinghamshire; † 6. Februar 1982 in London) war ein britischer Maler und Objektkünstler. Nicholson war der Sohn des Malers …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Nicholson Baker — in December 2007. Nicholson Baker (born January 7, 1957) is a contemporary American writer of fiction and non fiction. As a novelist, he often focuses on minute inspection of his characters and narrators stream of consciousness, and has written… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”