Ben Nicholson

Ben Nicholson was from a family of artists

Ben Nicholson was born Benjamin Lauder Nicholson on 10 April 1894 in Denham in the British county of Buckinghamshire. His parents were the British landscape painter Sir William Nicholson (1872-1949) and the Scottish artist Mabel Pryde (1871-1918), through whom he was confronted with the fine arts from early on. His younger siblings Nancy Nicholson (1899-1977) and Christopher Nicholson (1904-1948) also chose careers as artist and architect, whilst a further brother, Anthony Nicholson, died during the First World War. Through his maternal grandmother he was also related to the famous artist brothers Robert Scott Lauder (1803-1869) and James Eckford Lauder (1811-1869). The family lived in London from 1898, and during a holiday in Sussex, Ben Nicholson met the writer J.M. Barrie (1860-1937). The latter was impressed by Nicholson’s drawing talent and used a picture by the young ten-year-old artist as the basis for a poster for his play Peter Pan. Ben’s father William also designed several of the stage sets and costumes.

Artist friendship with Paul Nash and travels to the USA

Ben Nicholson attended Gresham’s School in Norfolk, a private school steeped in tradition, and studied for a semester in 1911 at the renowned Slade School of Art in London. There he met artists such as Mark Gertler (1891-1939), Stanley Spencer (1891-1959), Edward Wadswoth (1889-1949) and above all Paul Nash (1889-1946) with whom he formed a close friendship. He dedicated himself during this time rather more to billiards than the fine arts because the abstract impressions of the spherical shapes against the green felt ground was aesthetically more pleasing than traditional academic teaching – so he claimed with a twinkle in his eye later on. Nicholson was relieved of military duty during the First World War because of asthma and he travelled to New York to be operated on and visited several American cities. On his return to London in 1918, his mother had died from influenza and his younger brother Anthony had fallen in the war.

Inspiration from Piet Mondrian and Naum Gabo

Ben Nicholson’s first exhibitions still displayed figurative works, but from 1922 he was influenced by synthetic Cubism and eventually approached the primitive pictorial language of Henri Rousseau (1844-1910). During a sojourn in Paris, Nicholson met Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) and was deeply impressed by his Neoplasticism, steering him in the direction of Abstraction. Pablo Picasso’s Cubism also found expression in Nicholson’s work, and his first geometric reliefs were created in 1933 displaying a proximity to the Russian sculptor Naum Gabo (1890-1977). Together with his fellow artist Christopher Wood (1901-1930), he visited the angler and painter Alfred Wallis (1855-1942) in Cornwall. Nicholson was a member of the Seven and Five Society group from 1924 to 1936 and also belonged for a time to the group Abstraction-Création.

Exhibitions in Venice, Sa͂o Paolo and Kassel

Ben Nicholson received prizes and awards for his art including the Great International Prize for painting at the Sa͂o Paolo Biennale in 1957 and the Order of Merit from Queen Elisabeth II in 1969. He participated in the Venice Biennale in 1934 and 1954 – together with Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud – and Documenta in Kassel in 1955, 1959 and 1964. Nicholson was married three times: from 1920 to 1933 to the painter Winifred Nicholson (1893-1981), from 1938 to 1951 to the sculptor Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975) and from 1957 to 1977 to the photographer Felicitas Vogler (1922-2006).

Ben Nicholson died in London on 6 February 1982.