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Lot Essay
The present composition was painted near Mount Athos, Greece. The artist painted a small number of pictures with a similarly hot colour palette on this 1979 trip including Rainbow Path in the Grass (see C. Andreae, Winifred Nicholson, Farnham, 2009, p. 202, pl. 206). We are very grateful to Jovan Nicholson for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.
The poet Kathleen Raine, a friend and admirer of Nicholson, wrote: ‘Flowers, for her, were not solid objects, coloured, but in the most literal sense made of light.’ Nicholson, a deeply emotional woman, aimed for the serene but always felt it eluded her, despite her enthusiastic espousal of Christian Science. Spontaneity is a key ingredient in her approach, yet according to her son she planned paintings in her head, sometimes the night before. Here the spontaneous mixes with living translucent colour in an image of great radiance. John Craxton, who held her work in high esteem, observed that at her best Winifred Nicholson seemed not to realise how difficult it is to paint.
A.L.
The poet Kathleen Raine, a friend and admirer of Nicholson, wrote: ‘Flowers, for her, were not solid objects, coloured, but in the most literal sense made of light.’ Nicholson, a deeply emotional woman, aimed for the serene but always felt it eluded her, despite her enthusiastic espousal of Christian Science. Spontaneity is a key ingredient in her approach, yet according to her son she planned paintings in her head, sometimes the night before. Here the spontaneous mixes with living translucent colour in an image of great radiance. John Craxton, who held her work in high esteem, observed that at her best Winifred Nicholson seemed not to realise how difficult it is to paint.
A.L.