For the painter Winifred Nicholson, a yellow flower becomes like ‘a lamp in the window.’ Less well known than her first husband Ben Nicholson, to my mind, her little gem like ‘Still Lives’ deserve a little light to be shone on them…
Take the painting above, ‘Flowers at Night’. Its seeming simplicity is really a magic trick whereby the glass of the window disappears. Are those dabs of yellow light from the street outside or yellow petals? Is that thick black line the end of the window sill or the beginning of the night?
Hers is a delicate balancing act between the world of interiors and the world outside.
In the short video below, Alice Mumford, herself a painter, provides further illumination. Exploring the ‘poetic windows’ of Nicholson’s work with the same great sensitivity as her subject.
