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Lot Essay
In 1939, on the eve of the Second World War, Nicholson and Hepworth left London with their children for Carbis Bay in Cornwall. They initially stayed with the painter and critic Adrian Stokes and his first wife Margaret Mellis at Little Park Owles. After a brief stay at Dunluce, they moved into Chy-an-Kerris, still in Carbis Bay, where the present work was painted. With materials scarce, much of Nicholson's wartime work was executed on a small scale, revisiting many of his pre-war discourses, founded in his associations with contemporary European artists such as Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Piet Mondrian. He made various versions of the same composition, with subtle changes in the colour of one area reasserting the uniqueness of each version. This idea was perhaps borrowed from Nicholson's neighbour in Carbis Bay, Naum Gabo, who made multiple versions of his own plastic constructions.
During the 1930s Nicholson had explored the concept of abstraction in two major series of works: carved white reliefs and paintings created with geometric blocks of pure colour. The rectilinear composition and clarity of conception puts 1942, Dec 29 with the coloured abstracts of 1935-8, and particularly his group of pictures from 1937 which includes 1937 (painting) (Courtauld Gallery, London). They too use planes of intense colour, set against larger areas of different hues, often muted towards grey. Similarly, the surface is flat and evenly coloured, with little evidence of brushstrokes, qualities that are enhanced by Nicholson's preparation of the canvas, which he stretched over a sheet of board. This ensured its absolute flatness and provided a solid surface for him to work on, free from the inevitable give of a canvas traditionally stretched over a wooden framework.
Looking at the present work, however, it is difficult to avoid the association of its palette with the silvery grey skies and sandy beaches of St Ives, as well as the grey slate and granite landscape of the Penwith Peninsula. Nicholson's 1930s abstracts often have a dense and compact composition, but in the present work, this is replaced with a far less disciplined arrangement. While the earlier pictures make the striking colour contrasts between black, white and red prominent, the present work abandons black, uses a muted white, and adopts a far more subdued palette of greys, browns and blues. Whilst incorporating the landscape in this manner was perhaps impossible for Nicholson before his move to Cornwall, one cannot help but be reminded of Mondrian's famous dictate:
'I construct lines and colour combinations on a flat surface, in order to express general beauty with the utmost awareness. Nature inspires me, puts me, as with any painter, in an emotional state so that an urge comes about to make something, but I want to come as close as possible to the truth and abstract everything from that, until I reach the foundation of things' (P. Mondrian quoted in A. Elder, Color Volume, New York, 2006, p. 15).
During the 1930s Nicholson had explored the concept of abstraction in two major series of works: carved white reliefs and paintings created with geometric blocks of pure colour. The rectilinear composition and clarity of conception puts 1942, Dec 29 with the coloured abstracts of 1935-8, and particularly his group of pictures from 1937 which includes 1937 (painting) (Courtauld Gallery, London). They too use planes of intense colour, set against larger areas of different hues, often muted towards grey. Similarly, the surface is flat and evenly coloured, with little evidence of brushstrokes, qualities that are enhanced by Nicholson's preparation of the canvas, which he stretched over a sheet of board. This ensured its absolute flatness and provided a solid surface for him to work on, free from the inevitable give of a canvas traditionally stretched over a wooden framework.
Looking at the present work, however, it is difficult to avoid the association of its palette with the silvery grey skies and sandy beaches of St Ives, as well as the grey slate and granite landscape of the Penwith Peninsula. Nicholson's 1930s abstracts often have a dense and compact composition, but in the present work, this is replaced with a far less disciplined arrangement. While the earlier pictures make the striking colour contrasts between black, white and red prominent, the present work abandons black, uses a muted white, and adopts a far more subdued palette of greys, browns and blues. Whilst incorporating the landscape in this manner was perhaps impossible for Nicholson before his move to Cornwall, one cannot help but be reminded of Mondrian's famous dictate:
'I construct lines and colour combinations on a flat surface, in order to express general beauty with the utmost awareness. Nature inspires me, puts me, as with any painter, in an emotional state so that an urge comes about to make something, but I want to come as close as possible to the truth and abstract everything from that, until I reach the foundation of things' (P. Mondrian quoted in A. Elder, Color Volume, New York, 2006, p. 15).