Beschreibung:

Winifred Nicholson (British, 1893-1981) Hôtel Rue Brea, Paris oil on canvas 54 x 65.3 cm. (21 1/4 x 25 3/4 in.) Painted circa 1930 Fußnoten Provenance With Agnews & Sons, London Sir Lawrence Jones (1885-1969) Sale; Christie's, London, 18 July 1969, lot 121, where acquired by Gordon Binnie, thence by family descent Private Collection, U.K. Following regular visits to Paris with her husband Ben Nicholson on her way to and from Lugano in Switzerland during the early 1920s, Winifred Nicholson moved to the French capital in 1932 with her children and nanny, and settled in a newly built apartment at 48 quai d'Auteuil, overlooking the Seine. Christopher Andreae comments on this time: 'Her plan to go on to Paris (with the children) came about in the autumn of that year. This move could also have been prompted by some kind of wish to be in a place where [Christopher] Wood had been. At the same time, this move was adventurous in terms of developing her art. And it was canny. She could be very shrewd. She knew that Paris would have great appeal to Ben [Nicholson]. Often while she was in Paris, she went out of her way to encourage him to visit the city – and, of course, see her and the children. It was a strategy that worked.' (Christopher Andreae, Winifred Nicholson Lund Humphries, Farnham, 2009, p.114). Winifred's spell in Paris became significant to her artistic development. Her new friendships with Mondrian, Gabo and Hélion, among others, led to her experimentation with abstraction from 1934. She also purchased works from them to show her support and appreciation of the modernist cause. Yet, at the same time she continued to paint her flower arrangements, often on a table before an open window as in Hôtel Rue Brea, Paris, a painting which has not appeared at auction since 1969. In the present canvas a small posy of pink flowers are arranged within an octagonal glass case, beyond which, the walls of the Parisian building are infused with the same hue, to create a pleasing overall image of calm and serenity. Situated in the heart of Montparnasse, the hub of intellectual and artistic life in the city during the 1930s, the hotel was just a short walk from Winifred's flat. Her stay in Paris was just as important to the wider modern British art community back home, for it acted as a magnet and base for her husband, Ben Nicholson during his visits; he spent four months in France in 1933 and continued with lengthy stays each year until 1936. It was during this time that he committed to producing objective abstraction, having been encouraged by his new friend and abstract artist Jean Hélion Hôtel Rue Brea, Paris was most probably painted in the spring of 1930 when the artist briefly visited the city for Christopher Wood's and Ben Nicholson's exhibition at the Bernheim Gallery, before her longer term move two years later. For other pictures painted at this time see Kate and Cissy in Paris, and Fruits d'Etoile, Paris (Op. Cit. pp.90-91). We are grateful to Jovan Nicholson for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.