Ben Nicholson
Painted Box
Oil and pencil on wooden box, c.1928
33.0 x 27.9 x 12.4 cm (13 x 11 x 5 inches)
Signed, inscribed Cumberland and dated c.1928-9 on outside base of box
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Provenance:
Mr H.P. Roche, Paris, a gift from the artist; Mme Denise Roche, 1959; M Streap, New York: Mr and Mrs Andras Kalman, London, 1968; Browse and Darby, London, 1986; T. Hobson, 1989; London, Waddington Galleries, 1989; Stanley Seeger, London
Literature:
Joseph Masheck, 'Early Works by Ben Nicholson at Crane Kalman'' exhibition review, Studio International, vol.176, no.902, 1968, p.33, illustrated
Maurice de Sausmarez (ed.), Ben Nicholson, Studio International Special, 1969, p.17, illustrated in colour (dated 1930)
Jeremy Lewison, Ben Nicholson, Oxford, 1991, nos.32 & 33, illustrated in colour; Norbert Lynton, Ben Nicholson, London, 1993, p.100 (as 1930 (box)), pls.88 & 88a, illustrated in colour
Exhibition History:
London, Crane Kalman Gallery, Ben Nicholson: Early Works, 1968, no.11, illustrated in colour on the front cover of the catalogue London, Tate Gallery, Ben Nicholson, 1969, no.28 London, Browse and Darby, William Nicholson and Ben Nicholson - Paintings and Drawings 1919-45, 1983, no.25, illustrated on the inside of the back cover of the catalogue Scottish Arts Council touring exhibition, Ayr, Maclaurin Gallery, and toured to Orkney, Stromness, Pier Arts Centre, Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery, Aberdeen, Artspace, Ben Nicholson - Still Life and Abstraction, 1985, no.12 Madrid, Fundacion Juan March, and toured to Lisbon, Fundacao Calouste Gulbenkian, Ben Nicholson: Obras de 1919 a 1981, 1987, no.12 Martigny, Switzerland, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Ben Nicholson, 1992, no.10a, illustrated in colour in the catalogue, p.67 London, Tate Gallery, Ben Nicholson, 1993 and travelled to St. Etienne, Musee d'Art Moderne, 1994, no.16, illustrated in colour in the catalogue, p.113
Nicholson produced a number of painted boxes in the late 1920s and early 1930s. They were an extension of his ideas about creating a work of art as a three-dimensional object, exploring the relationship between different spatial planes. This interest was to culminate in the carved and incised surfaces of the reliefs, and also bears relation to Nicholson's friendship with Alfred Wallis, who painted jugs and pots with the same maritime scenes as he did two-dimensional trays and grocery boxes.
