MANY in number are the sons and daughters operating in the creative and performing arts whose names have been over shadowed by that of an illustrious parent. With Sir William and Ben Nicholson, however, the standings are reversed. Open any general dictionary of art and the entry on Ben is certain to be at least twice the length of the one devoted to his father. Where Nicholson Jnr has been described as ‘the only English painter to develop a pure abstract art of international quality between the two World Wars’, Sir William is seen as a minor player.
Aligned to no particular school, with no expressed interest in changing the direction of modern art, at best he was ‘the little master’ who ‘lacked that ruthlessness that is usually considered to be an appurtenance of genius’, according to Lillian Browse, organiser of a retrospective at the National Gallery in 1942. Even the knighthood, bestowed in 1936, sat uneasily upon his shoulders and he eventually chose to ignore it entirely, wrote Browse.
Ben said his father ‘merely wanted to paint’ and to let his pictures speak for themselves. They certainly were dramatically uneventful and untroubled, executed in the manner of someone who ‘betrayed little awareness of Matisse, Picasso, or, really, any of the transformations of art in the twentieth century’, as Sanford Schwartz, one of his more recent champions, has written. Yet, they also display a satisfying warmth, a mastery of technique and an old-school, painterly finish. They are not introspective, concerned as Sir William was with representing the surface appearance of his subjects, but they are cast with a serenity and ease of touch that seems reflective of the personality of their creator.
Denne historien er fra February 02, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra February 02, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
