Mughetti

After their marriage in November 1920 Winifred and Ben Nicholson toured Italy looking at pictures and with the aim of finding somewhere to live. They eventually bought Villa Capriccio, in the Ticino, Switzerland, which was light and spacious with views over Lake Lugano, and spent the winters there from 1920 until 1923. Away from England they experimented fast and furiously and Mughetti (Italian for lilies-of-the-valley) was the first painting where she found her true style.

From the letters between Winifred and Ben it is clear that Mughetti and the period it symbolised came to represent a special time that they had had together. She wrote to him in 1932, 'The idea of Marriage I had when we married is expressed in the Mughetti. I remember thinking of it while I painted. Love and the secret lovely things that is unfolds'.

Later she wrote, 'How many winters were there? I do not remember - but that last one our painting came to flowering point. It had hatched - Ben had given me a pot of lilies of the valley - Mughetti - in a tissue paper wrapper - this I stood on the window sill - behind was azure blue, Mountain, Lake and Sky, all there - and the tissue paper wrapper held the secret of the universe. That picture painted itself, and after that the same theme painted itself on that window sill, in cyclamen, primula, or cineraria - sunlight on leaves, and sunlight shining through lens and through the mystery of tissue paper'.

Mrs E.J. Hooper (née Jenkinson) studied at the Byam Shaw School of Art before the First World War at the same time as Winifred Nicholson where the two painters became close friends. Like Winifred Nicholson, the Hoopers spent much time in Cumberland.

J.N.