1934 (still life)

Ben Nicholson, 1894–1982

1934

Oil and pencil on canvas

Yale Center for British Art

An abstract composition features curved black lines and two circular shapes, one black and one red, against a textured background divided into light and dark sections. In 1924, Ben Nicholson became a member of the Seven and Five Society and gradually pulled the society into bolder, more experimental territory as his own work became more unequivocally abstract. In this painting from 1934, the two lively circles have a wild, kinetic presence. Nicholson had visited the Paris studio of the sculptor Alexander Calder a year earlier, and the forms of this still life echo the jaunty velocity of Calder’s mobiles. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection