Cathy's Art Diary

Fascinating exhibition at Pallant House Gallery looking at how Ben Nicholson’s art was shaped by objects he kept in his studio. This was a beautifully laid out show with excellent explanations. I loved the fact it included objects from the studio as well as the pictures that feature them. As a lot of the art is abstract I’m not sure I would have spotted those objects if they’d not been there. I loved a striped section of one work which you realised was a jug which was in the show nearby. The show also explained the changes in his art well including how his first relief came about due to the accidental loss of gesso from a prepared canvas. It also looked at the different places he lived and how that influenced his work. My favourite picture was the attached of Mousehole from 1947. I loved the way it combines a real landscape with abstract shapes based on things in his studio almost giving the impression of looking out through a window with object on the window ledge. Closes 24 ...

Delightful exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery looking at the work of Ben and Winifred Nicholson during their marriage and bringing in the work of their close friends the artists Christopher Wood and Alfred Wallis and the ceramicist William Staite Murray. The first gallery looked at the early years when they visited Paris and lived in Switzerland. In Paris they encountered Cubism and the show explored how that affected their work. It pointed out that Ben was interested in form and Winifred in colour and I’d never really throught what that might mean before. I think I’m with Winifred on the side of colour! The next room looked at their time in Cumberland where their friends Christopher Wood and William Staite Murray began to visit. The final rooms looked at their time in St Ives where they met Alfred Wallis and started to admire a more primitive style of art. I loved the sections where works by Ben, Winifred and Christopher were shown together, in particular three pi...

A scholarly exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery examining the relationship between Piet Mondrian and Ben Nicholson during the 1930's. when they were leading forces of abstract art in Europe . The works of both artists were hung next to each other so that you could compare and contrast easily. I had not really understood Mondrian before but seeing the works up close showed me that there is much more artistry in them that a reproduced image can ever show. I was fascinated by the letters and other ephemera which were shown with the pictures and the detail of the artists’ lives this showed. I find the theory of abstract art rather serious and philosophical but this was an exhibition which will make me take more interest in abstract work as objects and individual pictures. 

Very good study day at the Courtauld Institute of Art to complement their current exhibition looking at the work of Piet Mondrian and Ben Nicholson and the links between them. The morning looked at the lives of the two artists up to the point they met with Caroline Levitt looking at Mondrian and Jeremy Lewison at Nicholson. I did not know much about either artist and these talks gave me good overview of their artistic development up to 1934. The afternoon put them in the context of 1930s artistic London in an interesting talk by Sam Rose, although I could have done with a few less long quotes. Finally we brought the two artists together in a talk from co-curator of the exhibition Lee Beard. This was a fascinating overview of the parallels between their work and how they may have influenced each other. I would have liked to hear a bit more about the personal links between them as later in the exhibition I was fascinated to see that Winfred Nicholson, Ben’s wife, was the firs...

Exhibition of the works of Ben Nicholson at the Dean’s Gallery in Edinburgh put on as a result of a donation by his third wife Felicitas Vogler to the gallery. I loved the room about his family as this put his work in a context. I hadn’t realised before that his mother Mabel Pryde was an artist as well as his father and the works by her were very feminine and family orientated and reminded me slightly of Hilda Carline. I have never really come to grips with Ben Nicholson and this was another good opportunity to try but I still didn’t quite get there. I admire their pale tranquillity but must admit to liking colour and vibrancy more in my art. I did like the etchings of Tuscany, particularly the way none of the side of the plate were straight.