Quotes about Ben Nicholson

4 Sourced Quotes

'Circle' was published at last [constructivist manifesto, in 1937 - with Naum Gabo, Ben Nicholson a. o.]. Mondrian has made his studio opposite so very beautiful, and his company was always inspiring, as it had been in Paris when we used to visit him. After a while he really seemed to our domestic scene. His studio and Ben's [the sculptor Ben Nicholson; Barbara was his wife then] were most austere, but my studio was a jumble of children, rocks, sculptures, trees, importunate flowers and washing.

Barbara Hepworth

When the Surrealist exhibition [in London, 1936] was held Barbara [Hepworth] was by then married to [the sculptor] Ben Nicholson, they were strongly against it [against Surrealism], though I felt, and feel, that there needn't be the sort of division in art that sprang up then. And Ben had also been much influenced by Mondrian. He was devoted to abstract art and she became much more interested in the abstract form. But for me, the essence of sculpture has always been the human figure. Still, of course, one kept in touch and one met and one's paths crossed.

It's [the art-magazine 'Circle'] been reprinted and it's now referred to as classic. Well it is. But Ben Nicholson, Sir Leslie Martin, Gabo and Leslie Martin's wife, Sadie Speaight, and I did that. We were sitting round the fire and we said, 'Why shouldn't we do a book?' And so we started and now it's a classic and referred to as such.

Barbara Hepworth

The violent quarrel between the abstractionists [like Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, both English sculptors] and the surrealists seems to me quite unnecessary. All good art has contained both abstract and surrealist elements, just as it has contained both classical and romantic elements – order and surprise, intellect and imagination, conscious and unconscious. Both sides of the artist's personality must play their part. And I think the first inception of a painting or a sculpture may begin from either end.