Goblets (pink marble), 1949
Born in 1894 to artists Sir William Nicholson (the subject of last week's Work of the Week), and Mabel Pryde, Ben Nicholson followed in his parents' footsteps, and in particular took up his father's fascination with painting still-life.
No matter where Ben Nicholson ended up, in London, St Ives or Switzerland, he invariably collected, and surrounded himself with miscellaneous objects. His collection of cups, mugs, jugs, and more achieved legendary status amongst his admirers.
Nicholson elevated the still-life, using the depiction of commonplace objects to experiment, and to reinvigorate 20th Century art. Re-interpreting the same objects again and again, he created his own visual language - abstract, curvilinear designs on a flat picture plane, hinting at the objects within; the handle of a mug here, the lip of a jug there.
Enabling Nicholson to move between representation and abstraction, the still-life led him on the road from his father's rich illustrations, to the pure abstraction of his later work.
Nicholson's many trips to Paris with his wife Winifred are evidenced in many of his works. There he was exposed to the work of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Henri Matisse. This can be seen in his experimentation with the theme of the table-top still-life, in which he plays with surface, pictorial space, and form.
'I owe a lot to my father, especially to his poetic idea and to his still-life theme. In my work, this theme did not originally come from cubism, as some people think, but from my father - not only from what he made as a painter, but from the very beautiful striped and spotted jugs and mugs and goblets, and octagonal and hexagonal glass objects he collected. Having those things in the house was an unforgettable early experience for me.'
- Ben Nicholson