William Nicholson is famed for his effortlessly stylish still life paintings, and the present lot, White Chrysanthemums in a Pink Lustre Jug, is a brilliant example of his deft and striking flair for this genre.
While Nicholson derived most of his income from portraiture which occupied much of his t.mes until 1940, it was to landscape and to still life in particular that he turned to revel in the sheer enjoyment of painting. As many of the portrait commissions he received involved travelling to stay at the sitter’s homes away from London – and the bustle of his busy studio there – landscapes and still lifes were frequently painted for relaxation.
The present work is dated to circa 1909 and this was a significant year for Nicholson for a number of reasons. Perhaps most important was the t.mes spent in Rottingdean, on the southeastern edge of the South Downs. Between August and September Nicholson rented a family house in Rottingdean, going on to take possession of the former vicarage there in October which he renamed the Grange. A flurry of landscape paintings resulted from this rural escape, and indeed this peaceful retreat also allowed t.mes for him to explore and develop the still life subject which he has become so well known for.
Nicholson's flair for composition is illustrated brilliantly in White Chrysanthemums in a Pink Lustre Jug. Sat atop a book, in typical Nicholson style, is a painted jug, the decoration suggested by skilful daubs of green and dark pink paint. A profusion of foliage sits atop, crowned by crisp white chrysanthemum petals framing sunny yellow centres. Nicholson plays with the contrast of the scene, shining the brightness of the flowers against a dark black background, that indeed was a hallmark of his style and famous among his son Ben Nicholson's artist friends; Paul Nash recalls Mark Gertler asking Ben:
"Oh, Nicholson, how does your father paint those marvellous black backgrounds?"
His still lifes are also his most personal works. Frequently, the silver and ceramics chosen came from his own collects ion. As Patricia Reed notes,
"he chose them for the beauty of their form rather than with the eye of a connoisseur, and he did not set out to record them as objects. They presented the challenge of depicting reflective surfaces which was an inspiration to him until 1920."
Favoured objects recur in his paintings and the form of the painted pink lustre milk jug (which dates from 1820) in the present work is similar to those seen in two later paintings, The Staffordshire Jug (1910) and Jugs, Bowl and Box (1911), (Patricia Reed, William Nicholson, Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Modern Art Press, London, 2011, nos. 219 and 246 respectively).
Flowers – a particularly favoured subject – recur throughout his still life paintings, and his daughter Elizabeth Banks touchingly recalled that "wandering in the garden we picked flowers for the house and many of these had to sit for him" (Elizabeth Banks, ‘Foreword’, William Nicholson: Painter. Landscape and Still Life, op.cit., p. 8)
It was for the love of painting that Nicholson worked, and observation of the meticulously arranged still life scenes was particularly important for him. He would somet.mes s set up a still life but leave it untouched for days, absorbings every element, before painting it swiftly and with great skill.
White Chrysanthemums in a Pink Lustre Jug is a masterful example of Nicholson’s most personal and favoured subject from an important period in his development as an artist, and shows a delight in the simplicity and pleasure of painting itself, one of his greatest joys.