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Lot Essay
Looking down at the distinctive panorama of St Ives harbour, the present work's perspective is striking - the foreground’s jagged silhouette suggesting Nicholson has captured the scene from a rocky outcrop up on the cliffs. Meanwhile, the lighthouse at the end of the pier and the sail-boat headed out to sea echo the work of Alfred Wallis, the marine painter that had made such a strong impression on Nicholson when he first visited St Ives in 1928.
In 1939, just before the outbreak of the war, Nicholson and his wife, Barbara Hepworth, moved from London with their young family to Carbis Bay, just outside of St Ives. This move had a profound effect on Nicholson’s creativity, with the difficulties of securing painting materials and the problems of selling work during war time prompting a return to landscape painting for the first time in almost a decade. The majority of works Nicholson made during this period were therefore modest in scale, and tended to depict St Ives itself, or the surrounding area. Whilst Nicholson had always loved drawing, it was around this time that he stated ‘the dealers now write to me for them & it seems almost my only way to make sales but above all it is an excuse to go off with a thermos & sandwiches for the day into the country & make drawings’ (the artist quoted in C. Stephens (ed.), exhibition catalogue, Ben Nicholson in England: A Continuous Line, London, Tate, 2008, p. 58).
The origin for the group of landscapes to which St Ives belongs, lies partly in the illustrations to a children’s story, George and Rufus, that Nicholson had created before the war, and were made into a fabric by his friend Alastair Morton at Edinburgh Weavers. The present work was acquired by Morton shortly after it was painted, possibly in May 1940 when he went to visit Nicholson to suggest he should make a photographic record of his work (see J. Lewison, exhibition catalogue, Ben Nicholson: the years of experiment 1919-39, Cambridge, Kettle's Yard, 1983, p. 79).
In 1939, just before the outbreak of the war, Nicholson and his wife, Barbara Hepworth, moved from London with their young family to Carbis Bay, just outside of St Ives. This move had a profound effect on Nicholson’s creativity, with the difficulties of securing painting materials and the problems of selling work during war time prompting a return to landscape painting for the first time in almost a decade. The majority of works Nicholson made during this period were therefore modest in scale, and tended to depict St Ives itself, or the surrounding area. Whilst Nicholson had always loved drawing, it was around this time that he stated ‘the dealers now write to me for them & it seems almost my only way to make sales but above all it is an excuse to go off with a thermos & sandwiches for the day into the country & make drawings’ (the artist quoted in C. Stephens (ed.), exhibition catalogue, Ben Nicholson in England: A Continuous Line, London, Tate, 2008, p. 58).
The origin for the group of landscapes to which St Ives belongs, lies partly in the illustrations to a children’s story, George and Rufus, that Nicholson had created before the war, and were made into a fabric by his friend Alastair Morton at Edinburgh Weavers. The present work was acquired by Morton shortly after it was painted, possibly in May 1940 when he went to visit Nicholson to suggest he should make a photographic record of his work (see J. Lewison, exhibition catalogue, Ben Nicholson: the years of experiment 1919-39, Cambridge, Kettle's Yard, 1983, p. 79).