Ben Nicholson <em>Princess</em>
Ben Nicholson <em>Princess</em>
Ben Nicholson <em>Princess</em>

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Ben Nicholson Princess
1933/1977

In the early 1920s Ben Nicholson would cut lino blocks which he then printed onto cotton or linen for curtains and bedspreads for his personal use, in the home he shared with his wife Barbara Hepworth. Hepworrth collaborated with the work, perhaps doing the printing.  Later to raise money he sold the fabrics.

 *He would print one block upside down to show the fabric was handprinted. Spots, Numbers, Letters & Numbers, Blocks and Princess were some of his designs. He was unusual in liking printed fabrics in his home, when most of the artists involved in the Modern Movement prefered woven fabrics in natural colours.

Ben gave his lino blocks for fabric printing to his sister Nancy Nicholson in 1929, when she set up Poulk Prints, after her marriage to Robert Graves ended.  In 1933 she and poet Geoffrey Taylor were living together and built a house The Poulk in Sutton Vene, Warmisnter, Wiltshire. They set up the Poulk Press near Westbury, Wiltshire. Nancy printed three of Ben's designs including Princess (kings and queens).   She also handprinted fabrics of her own, most designed before the Second World War.  In 1945 she moved to London to a shop in Motcomb Street, Belgravia, off Sloane Street, which she called Poulk Prints, where she printed and displayed her fabrics, printed letterheads and decorated houses. In the 1970s Nancy taught her skills to her daughter-in-law Anneliese Graves, who after Nancy's death in 1977 continued to print her designs. I am rather assuming this length was printed then, but be lovely if someone could tell me it was earlier!

Description

lino block printed cotton in pale grey, the fabric covered in rectangles containing faces (princesses), crowns and Os, and two scarlet lines.

10 in; 25 cm vertcal repeat. 6in;15 cm horizontal repeat.

Total length 305 in or 25ft 5 in/ 7.75 m

Measurement to first red line 71 x 34 1/2 in/ 180 x 88 cm.

Measurement from first red line to second 65 in/165 cm

Measurement from second red line to end 170 in/ 430 cm

34 x.  in; 87 x   m

Condition

Unused. The printing is slightly irregular as is the depth of colour, appearing stronger in parts. You will see some misprints.

Comments

The Nicholsons: A story of four people and their designs. York City Art Gallery 1988. p 35

*Ways of Life. Jim Ede and the Kettle's Yard Artists. Laura Freeman p 278

The Early Prints of Ben Nicholson. Print Quarterly, June 1985 p 105

Artists' Textiles in Britain 1945-70. Geoffrey Rayner, Richard Chamberlain, Annamarie Stapleton. p 40, fig 21.

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