Ben Nicholson: Defining Works: 1929-1954

An artist of rare ingenuity, sharp wit and copious invention, Ben Nicholson was among the leading international modernist artists of the twentieth century. Piano Nobile is pleased to present significant works from several distinct periods of his career. Nicholson’s reputation is partly founded on his pioneering use of relief carving and the display features his first completed relief, made in Paris in December 1933, which has not been in a solo exhibition since the major Nicholson retrospective in 1992/93. Alongside the first completed relief are paintings that illustrate important creative milestones in Nicholson’s work between 1929 and 1954—the period in which he rose from the sanctum of advanced British painting to receive international acclaim. Among them are Nov 9–53 (walnut), a post-cubist painting formerly owned by the sculptor Barbara Hepworth and not seen in public since 1954.

Including both table-top still-life paintings and non-representational work, such as Design for an Act Drop (1945), the exhibition demonstrates the sudden emergence of abstraction in Nicholson’s work during the thirties followed by a return to his ‘still-life theme’ after 1945. The show follows Ben Nicholson: Distant Planes, held at Piano Nobile in 2020/21, which brought together relief carvings and landscape drawings made in Switzerland between 1958 and 1971.