Nicholson, Wallis and St Ives

The small and charming town of St Ives in Cornwall, England, is still a gathering place for artists today. It played an important part in the life of the English abstract painter Ben Nicholson, who was particularly influenced by his discovery of the local `primitive' painter Alfred Wallis. Nicholson's own work was geometrically inspired and owed a lot to Cubism; Wallis's was naïvely figurative and descriptive. And yet, paradoxically, his contact with Wallis helped Nicholson to move toward increasingly abstract and formal art.

© 1998-2008 The Roland Collection & Pira Intl.