Signed and dated Oct 27-50 on the reverse.

Galerie Kornfeld, Bern

Private Collection, Switzerland

For comparative works, see Lund Humphries, Ben Nicholson, Vol. 2, 1956. Specifically no.25 (May 1950 - Landscape from San Gimignano, collection of Paul D. Sachs, USA), no.26 (May 1950 - Single tower, San Gimignano, collection Alan Oliver), no.66 (May 1950 - early morning from San Gimignano, collection C.S. Reddihough), no.99 (May 1950 - San Gimignano, collection Jane Mull, USA), no.122 (Feb 1951 - San Gimignano, crescent moon, collection C.S. Reddihough)

Painted in 1950, San Gimignano records Nicholson's encounter with the celebrated Sienese landscape, blending the curving lines of the Italian countryside with the jagged edges of graphic abstraction. Discontinuous in style, Nicholson varies the canvas with areas of severe, representational line drawing, over broad, soft washes of colour, with sharp-edged areas in pale blue, green and magenta.

'From 1950, the year of his first post war trip to Tuscany, dates the beginning of a long series of studies that fondly record sites in Mediterranean countries that the artist would visit many times over. Frequently the distinction between these and other independent drawings becomes extremely fine or blurred. 'Drawings' are done over coloured grounds, paint is sometimes added to drawings for special accent and certain paintings have a linear structure that takes it's language directly from Nicholson's graphic oeuvre.