Painting 1943

Artist Ben Nicholson (British, 1894 - 1982)

Date1943

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsFramed: 50 7/8 × 44 3/4in. (129.2 × 113.7cm)
Overall: 48 x 42in. (121.9 x 106.7cm)

ClassificationsPAINTINGS

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Terms

20th Century

Object number52.8

Description

On View

On view

Collections

20th-Century Paintings

CopyrightPresumed copyright: the artist or the artist's representative/heir(s).

Label TextNicholson began to make pure abstract paintings, with very smooth surfaces, in 1935. Until that point one of the defining characteristics of his work had been his gently modulated textured surfaces. The production of flatly painted abstractions such as Painting 1943 was, then, a major departure. Here the illusion of shallow depth is created through line and color contrasts. Painting 1943 was made in Cornwall, where Nicholson and his wife, sculptor Barbara Hepworth, had moved in 1939 to avoid the imminent bombing of London. During the World War II (1939-45) this distant location marginalized Nicholson from the mainstream of artistic activity of which he had been a significant member. Painting 1943 exemplifies the way in which he, nevertheless, fought to keep the modernist flame alive. Nicholson's continued promotion of the modernist cause was most starkly seen in an essay he contributed to Horizon, the leading cultural journal of the day: "About abstract art: I have not yet seen it pointed out that this liberation of form and color is closely linked with all the other liberations one hears about. I think it ought, perhaps, to come into our lists of war-aims." Coming shortly after The Blitz and published as the German army marched into the Soviet Union, this was nothing if not audacious. He had always related his art to ideas of a non-material realm and to a spiritual and social (though not necessarily political) revolution. His dogged adherence to these values saw the ideas of Nicholson and his circle influence debates about post-war reconstruction that were beginning to gather pace in 1943. Chris Stephens 2005