WINIFRED NICHOLSON
Oxford 1893 - 1981 Brampton
Ref: CC 202
Christmas Present
Signed, dated and inscribed on the reverse of the frame:
Christmas Present Winifred Nicholson 1948
There is another painting on the reverse depicting the concert pianist, Vera Moore, playing the piano
Oil on canvas: 20 x 24 in / 50.8 x 61 cm
Frame size: 31 x 27 in / 78.7 x 68.6 cm
In its original frame
Provenance:
Alan E Oliver (a collector and friend of Ben Nicholson and Cecil Collins), by 1963, then by descent; private collection, UK
Exhibited:
London, Lefevre Gallery, Robert Macbryde, Winifred Nicholson, Robert Colquhoun, May 1949, no.27
London, The Tate Gallery, Winifred Nicholson, 3rd June-2nd August 1987, no.34, illus.; this exhibition toured to Newcastle, Laing Art Gallery, 15th August-20th September 1987; Bristol City Art Gallery, 26th September-1st November 1987; Stoke City Art Gallery, 7th November-13th December 1987; Aberdeen City Art Gallery, 9th-31st January 1988 and Cambridge, Kettle’s Yard, 13th February-20th March 1988
As a subtle colourist Winifred Nicholson chose to paint flowers because ‘they are the only things that express colour constantly.’ She had many favourites, but especially liked to paint spring bulbs in a bowl, and amongst these bulbs hyacinths were a particular favourite: see for example Candlemas I (private collection).[1] Christmas Present was almost certainly painted at Boothby, Winifred Nicholson’s parent’s house in Cumberland (as it then was) where she lived from the early 1940s until her father’s death in 1959, and is a present after her own heart.[2] With the hyacinths wrapped in transparent tissue paper, Christmas Present has echoes of the works Winifred Nicholson made at the beginning of her career in Lugano, Switzerland, where she painted a series of paintings of flowers with tissue paper, including Cyclamen and Primulas (Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge) and Mughetti (private collection).[3] This series of pictures was painted at a very happy time after she was first married, and similarly in Christmas Present the hyacinths are early harbingers of the brighter spring season to come, expressing one of Winifred’s most consistent themes: ‘I like promise of things to come. There always turns out such unexpected and exciting things in the colourlessness of the unknown future.’
The painting on the reverse depicts the New Zealand born concert pianist, Vera Moore (1896-1997), the mother of Brâncuşi’s only son and a close friend of Winifred Nicholson’s, who convinced Vera Moore to buy a picture by Mondrian in 1930s when they were both living in Paris.[4] After her performance in the Wigmore Hall, The Observer (30th June 1935) remarked, ‘Miss Moore is a pleasure to hear...Miss Moore thoroughly understands the limits of pianoforte tone; she plays no note that is not as beautiful as she can make it.’ While Vera Moore gave recitals regularly in the 1930s, only recently have archival recordings of Vera Moore performing surfaced online.
Jovan Nicholson, author of Winifred Nicholson: Liberation of Colour (Philip Wilson Publishers, 2016) and grandson of Ben and Winifred Nicholson.
[1] See Jovan Nicholson, Winifred Nicholson in Cumberland, exh. cat., Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal 2016, p.51 and Christopher Andreae, Winifred Nicholson, Lund Humphries 2009, illus. in colour no.160, p.169.
[2] For other pictures painted at Boothby see Jovan Nicholson, Winifred Nicholson in Cumberland, ibid, pp.14-15, 50-53.
[3] See Jovan Nicholson, Winfred Nicholson: Liberation of Colour, Philip Wilson Publishers, London 2016, pp.13, 45-47.
[4] See ibid. p.21 and 5, Mondrian, Nicholson, In Parallel, exh. cat., Courtauld Institute, London 2012, pp.49, 150. For Winifred Nicholson’s other portraits of Vera Moore see Brahms/Vera Moore, 1930s (Andrew Nicholson (ed.), Unknown Colour, Paintings Letters, Writings by Winifred Nicholson, Faber and Faber, London 1987, p.237, and Woman Playing a Piano (Vera Moore), c.1930 (Ingram collection), From A Private Collection, Fine Art Society, London 2010, no.12.
