Winifred Nicholson (British, 1893-1981) White Violets signed, titled and dated 'White Violets/Winifred Nicholson/1922' (verso) pencil and oil on board 45.7 x 54.7 cm. (18 x 21 1/2 in.) Footnotes: Provenance With Austin Desmond Fine Art, London, April 1984, where acquired by Reuters Group Plc, where acquired by the family of the present owner Private Collection, U.K. Exhibited London, Mansard Gallery, Seventeenth Exhibition of the London Group, 16 October-11 November 1922 London, W.B. Paterson Gallery, Paintings by Benjamin and Winifred Nicholson, May-June 1923, cat.no.27 Ascot, Austin Desmond Fine Art, Aspects of Modern British Art, 24 March–28 April 1984, cat.no.40 After Winifred and Ben Nicholson married in November 1920 they spent their honeymoon travelling around Italy looking for somewhere to live, eventually settling on a house at Castagnola, near Lugano, in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland. Here they spent three winters, travelling back to England via Paris where they admired works by Cézanne, Picasso, Braque, Rousseau, Matisse and Derain, absorbing what they had seen and experimenting furiously. Winifred described Paris as 'electric with innovation ... Its creative energy was not to be believed, so we always went back to Villa Capriccio and brooded our ideas'. (See Sebastian Barassi 'The Allure of the South: the Nicholsons in Italy and Switzerland, 1920-23' in Art and Life: Ben Nicholson, Winifred Nicholson, Christopher Wood, Alfred Wallis, William Staite Murray, 1920-1923, Philip Wilson Publishers, London, 2014). Many of the paintings then made have not survived, and White Violets, which was exhibited at the London Group show in the autumn of 1922 is the earliest known work from this pivotal moment in Winifred Nicholson's development. Winifred's White Violets and Ben Nicholson's 1922 (Bread) (Tate) give an indication of how closely the husband and wife worked together, but it was Winifred's painting which came to 'flowering point' the following winter, notably in Cyclamen and Primula (Kettle's Yard, Cambridge) and also exploring translucent white light, in an astonishing period of creativity that Winifred was never able to repeat. Winifred later wrote, 'You know how much I like buds, the beginnings of things, with all the promise to come implied, but not yet stated.' White Violets, with its white buds hovering expectantly and which introduces so many of Winifred's favourite ideas and themes, can be seen symbolically as just such a beginning with the promise implied. We are grateful to Jovan Nicholson for compiling this catalogue entry. This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: AR AR Goods subject to Artists Resale Right Additional Premium. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com