Ben Nicholson, Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester - chasing out something alive

Ben Nicholson: chasing out something alive
The Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester
4 October - 15 December 2002

Ben Nicholson is recognised as one of the most important British artists of the twentieth century. By bringing together his late drawings and painted reliefs, this exhibition shows the range of Ben Nicholson’s imagination and artistic achievement.

The drawings and painted reliefs made between 1950 and 1975 represent the culmination of Ben Nicholson’s career. The artist felt that it was through these works, and the seminal white reliefs of the 1930s, that he wished his art to be judged. In his work, Ben Nicholson aimed to represent the inner life of things rather than their outward and material appearance. ‘A painting or a carving’, he said, ‘is quite simply the expression of an idea’. This interest in the ‘spirit in painting’ led Nicholson towards abstraction, his painted reliefs expressing an experience of time and place.

While the reliefs show Ben Nicholson at his most abstract and austere, his drawings are much more approachable. His studies of landscape, architecture and still life have a spontaneity, wit and virtuosity that make them his most personal expressions. Many chronicle his travels through Britain, Italy and Greece. Like the reliefs, the drawings seek to capture the essence of a place as well as the physical reality. The artist creates ‘something alive’ from pencil and paper, paint and board.

Drawings and reliefs are the two poles between which Ben Nicholson’s imagination ranged, from the particular to the universal – the two dimensional drawings representing a single aspect of reality, the three dimensional reliefs exploring a wider whole.

Ben Nicholson: ‘chasing out something alive’ was originated by Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge and has been supported by the Henry Moore Foundation.

THE WHITWORTH ART GALLERY
The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M15 6ER
www.whitworth.man.ac.uk