Research Forum
Calendar Archive: Spring Term 2007
Ben Nicholson
Friday 18 May and Saturday 19 May
Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre
Ben Nicholson c.1932. Courtesy Bowness, Hepworth Estate
This two-day conference, which has been made possible with the support of the British Academy, will aim to provide a significant (re)evaluation of the art, life and legacy of Ben Nicholson. Without doubt an important figure in the history of 20th century art, the presentation and reception of Nicholson’s work has at times been ambivalent. Whilst viewed by some as an innovator within visual modernism others have positioned Nicholson, at best, as a receptive follower of artistic trends abroad. In turn, the artist’s engagement with an ‘international’ avant-garde has appeared to have created a certain degree of anxiety concerning his identity as an English artist, and vice versus. The conference will consider such issues alongside other key questions surrounding the artist’s career, including recent research into the private spaces in which Nicholson produced and displayed his work.
PROGRAMME
Friday 18th May |
|
10.00 |
Registration |
10.30 |
Opening of Conference: Lee Beard (British Academy Fellow, Courtauld Institute of Art) |
10.45 |
SESSION 1 Chair – David Peters Corbett (University of York) |
10.45 - 11.15 |
Ysanne Holt (University of Northumbria): ‘Restless as the Wind in Matters of Place’: Ben Nicholson at Banks Head’ |
11.15 - 11.45 |
Andrew Causey (University of Manchester): Nicholson and the “Primitive” |
11.45 - 12.15 |
Jeremy Lewison (Independent Art Historian): Trauma, Conflict and Competition: Ben Nicholson and Family Matters |
12.15 - 12.45 |
Discussion |
12.45 - 13.45 |
LUNCH |
13.45 |
SESSION 2 Chair – Robert Burstow (University of Derby) |
13.45 - 14.15 |
Margaret Garlake (Independent Art Historian): Ben Nicholson: Spaces, Places, Landscapes |
14.15 - 14.45 |
Charles Harrison (Open University): Nicholson and the Decline of Cubism |
14.45 - 15.15 |
Discussion |
15.15 - 15.45 |
TEA |
15.45 |
SESSION 3 Chair – Christopher Green (Courtauld Institute of Art) |
15.45 - 16.15 |
Paul Hendon (Open University): Ben Nicholson’s Studio Photographs in ‘Unit One’ |
16.15 - 16.45 |
Lee Beard (British Academy Fellow, Courtauld Institute of Art): Photography and the Reflected Image’ |
16.45 - 17.15 |
Lucy Inglis (Independent Art Historian): A ‘Common Idea’: Ben Nicholson, Jean Gorin and International Style Abstraction of the 1930s |
17.15 - 17.45 |
Discussion |
17.45 |
RECEPTION |
|
|
Saturday 19th May |
|
10.30 |
SESSION 4 Chair – Lee Beard (British Academy Fellow, Courtauld Institute of Art) |
10.30 – 11.00 |
Alice Strang (Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art): Circle of Friends: Ben Nicholson and Leslie Martin |
11.00 - 11.30 |
Andrew Stephenson (University of East London): Ben Nicholson and Debates Around Abstraction and Modernism in the Home in the Late 1920s and 30s |
11.30 - 12.00 |
Robert Burstow (University of Derby): Ben Nicholson: the postwar public paintings |
12.00 - 12.30 |
Discussion |
12.30 - 13.30 |
LUNCH |
13.30 - 15.00 |
SESSION 5 Chair – Virginia Button (Independent Writer and Curator) Round Table Discussion: Exhibiting Nicholson |