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Lot Essay
We are very grateful to Rachel Smith and Lee Beard for their assistance in cataloguing this lot.
Nov 59 (landscape with monolith) dates from a period of great ambition and confidence in Ben Nicholson’s career. The 1950s was a decade in which his position at the forefront of a generation of post-war modern artists was firmly secured. In 1954 Nicholson was invited, alongside Graham Sutherland and Francis Bacon, to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale. The success of the show was such that following Venice, the collection was toured to other major European venues before being displayed at a large-scale retrospective at the Tate Gallery, London, in 1955.
Following Nicholson’s marriage to Felicitas Vogler in 1957, the couple moved to Brissago in Switzerland overlooking Lake Maggiore. The marriage and move provided Nicholson with a renewed sense of productivity and purpose, and specifically a return to the relief medium. He relished being in the heart of Europe - as had been the case during the 1930s, he once again felt part of an international body of artists, writers and exhibitions. Furthermore, the impact of both the immediate and wider European landscapes on his work was significant. As he highlighted in an interview published during the month that he was working on Nov 59 (landscape with monolith):
''The landscape is superb, especially in winter and when seen from the changing levels of the mountain side,’ he wrote, ‘the persistent sunlight, the bare trees seen against a translucent lake, the hard, rounded forms of the snow topped mountains, and perhaps with a late evening moon rising beyond in a pale, cerulean sky – is entirely magical and with the kind of visual poetry which I would like to find in my painting'' (B. Nicholson quoted in ‘Mr Ben Nicholson answers some questions about his work and view,’ The Times, 12 November 1959).
Nov 59 (landscape with monolith) synthesises Nicholson’s ambitions with the relief medium in a tightly balanced composition imbued with subtle, earthy colours redolent of the landscape. Each line, recession and projection is executed with utmost precision and the two circles are held in perfect counterbalance. ‘It is this harmony of the straight and curved lines uniting the different elements of which painting has consisted since its beginning – the plane, colour chiaroscuro, movement and rest, symbolic signs … which is the essence of his artistic adventure’ (J.P. Hodin, ‘La Biennale di Venezia’, 1954, quoted in H. Read (intro.), Ben Nicholson: Work Since 1947 Volume 2, London, 1956).
Nov 59 (landscape with monolith) dates from a period of great ambition and confidence in Ben Nicholson’s career. The 1950s was a decade in which his position at the forefront of a generation of post-war modern artists was firmly secured. In 1954 Nicholson was invited, alongside Graham Sutherland and Francis Bacon, to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale. The success of the show was such that following Venice, the collection was toured to other major European venues before being displayed at a large-scale retrospective at the Tate Gallery, London, in 1955.
Following Nicholson’s marriage to Felicitas Vogler in 1957, the couple moved to Brissago in Switzerland overlooking Lake Maggiore. The marriage and move provided Nicholson with a renewed sense of productivity and purpose, and specifically a return to the relief medium. He relished being in the heart of Europe - as had been the case during the 1930s, he once again felt part of an international body of artists, writers and exhibitions. Furthermore, the impact of both the immediate and wider European landscapes on his work was significant. As he highlighted in an interview published during the month that he was working on Nov 59 (landscape with monolith):
''The landscape is superb, especially in winter and when seen from the changing levels of the mountain side,’ he wrote, ‘the persistent sunlight, the bare trees seen against a translucent lake, the hard, rounded forms of the snow topped mountains, and perhaps with a late evening moon rising beyond in a pale, cerulean sky – is entirely magical and with the kind of visual poetry which I would like to find in my painting'' (B. Nicholson quoted in ‘Mr Ben Nicholson answers some questions about his work and view,’ The Times, 12 November 1959).
Nov 59 (landscape with monolith) synthesises Nicholson’s ambitions with the relief medium in a tightly balanced composition imbued with subtle, earthy colours redolent of the landscape. Each line, recession and projection is executed with utmost precision and the two circles are held in perfect counterbalance. ‘It is this harmony of the straight and curved lines uniting the different elements of which painting has consisted since its beginning – the plane, colour chiaroscuro, movement and rest, symbolic signs … which is the essence of his artistic adventure’ (J.P. Hodin, ‘La Biennale di Venezia’, 1954, quoted in H. Read (intro.), Ben Nicholson: Work Since 1947 Volume 2, London, 1956).