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An image of Storm over Paros by Ben Nicholson

Ben Nicholson

(England 1894–1982)

Title
Storm over Paros
Year
1965
Media category
Print
Materials used
etching
Edition
9/50
Dimensions

27.8 x 32.3cm platemark; 37.6 x 43.1cm sheet

Signature & date
Signed and dated l.l. sheet, pencil "... Nicholson 65".
Credit
Purchased 2003
Accession number
77.2003
Copyright
© Ben Nicholson/DACS. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney
Location
Not on display
Further information

Between 1965 and 1968 Nicholson worked with François Lafranca, a Swiss printer, to produce a series of etchings. The subjects are mostly of buildings and architectural fragments which Nicholson had seen and drawn during his travels in Italy and Greece.Typically the forms are drawn with a precise outline. But in the case of this etching the artist created an attractive atmospheric effect by rubbing ink onto the surface of the copper plate before printing it.

In an interview in the Sunday Times, 23 April 1963, Nicholson said that there was a difference between contemplating a building and penetrating it by drawing it: "If I am drawing a piece of Greek or Italian architecture I draw the forms, but it is the spirit of the building that I am contemplating, not its stones".

Bibliography (3)

'Year in review' pg.14-35, Art Gallery of New South Wales Annual Report 2003 2003, 2003, 20.

Norbert Lynton, Ben Nicholson, Florence, 1993, 354 (illus.), 355.

Author Unknown, Ben Nicholson: etchings printed by François Lafranca, 1983, 111. cat.no. 68