15 Facts About Ben Nicholson

1.

Ben Nicholson's maternal grandmother Barbara Pryde was a niece of the famous artist brothers Robert Scott Lauder and James Eckford Lauder.

2.

Ben Nicholson was educated at Tyttenhangar Lodge Preparatory School, Seaford, at Heddon Court, Hampstead and then as a boarder at Gresham's School, Holt, Norfolk.

3.

Ben Nicholson trained as an artist in London at the Slade School of Fine Art between 1910 and 1911, where he was a contemporary of Paul Nash, Stanley Spencer, Mark Gertler, and Edward Wadsworth.

4.

Ben Nicholson and Winifred had three children: a son, Jake, in June 1927; a daughter, Kate, in July 1929; and a son, Andrew, in September 1931.

5.

Ben Nicholson was exempted from World War I military service due to asthma.

6.

Ben Nicholson travelled to New York in 1917 for an operation on his tonsils, then visited other American cities, returning to Britain in 1918.

7.

From 1920 to 1933, he was married to the painter Winifred Ben Nicholson and lived in London.

8.

In London, Ben Nicholson met the sculptors Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore.

9.

Ben Nicholson's gift was the ability to incorporate these European trends into a new style that was recognizably his own.

10.

Ben Nicholson first visited St Ives, Cornwall, in 1928 with his fellow painter Christopher Wood, where he met the fisherman and painter, Alfred Wallis.

11.

Ben Nicholson believed that abstract art should be enjoyed by the general public, as shown by the Nicholson Wall, a mural he created for the garden of Sutton Place in Guildford, Surrey.

12.

Ben Nicholson moved to St Ives in 1939 living at Trezion, Salubrious Place, for 19 years.

13.

Ben Nicholson won the prestigious Carnegie Prize in 1952 and in 1955 a retrospective exhibition of his work was shown at the Tate Gallery in London.

14.

Ben Nicholson married the photographer Felicitas Vogler in 1957 and moved to Castagnola, Switzerland, in 1958.

15.

Ben Nicholson died there on 6 February 1982 and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 12 February 1982.