

108
Ben Nicholson
1978 June (group in movement)
- Estimate
- £12,000 - 18,000‡♠
£11,875
Lot Details
pen, oil and wash on paper laid on prepared board
signed, titled and dated 'Nicholson "(group in movement) June '78"' on the reverse of the sheet; further signed, titled and dated 'Nicholson "(group in movement) June '78"' on the reverse of the backboard
48.5 x 47 cm (19 1/8 x 18 1/2 in.)
Executed in June 1978.
Specialist
Full-Cataloguing
Catalogue Essay
'1978 June (group in movement) is a powerful and surprising example. It is of a medium size for the series and combines black ink with Indian red on white paper. Little of the white remains visible. There is solid black as well as a blackish wash and a small area of slighter, lighter red on the left. The objects are bunched together, two or three of them. They are distorted in a new way, stretched sideways on a left-to-right rising path, and held in an elliptical shape which is made of the black and the two reds and appears to carry the objects in that direction. The darker red could belong to the first object. The dramatic black form, an unmitigated curve not seen in [Ben Nicholson] before, is not identified with anything though black areas in the cup on the right make it seem that the black is invading it. A short horizontal line emphasises the feeling that the group is rising; one wavy line near the top provides a mountainous landscape background. (Norbert Lynton, Ben Nicholson, London, 1993, no. 406, p. 411).
Provenance
Exhibited
Literature