Barbara Hepworth
Gabriele Mazzotta, Milan, and thence by descent to the present owner

Bologna, Galleria d'arte Moderna, Morandi e il suo tempo, 9th November 1985 - 10th February 1986, cat. no.210, illustrated.

John Russell (intro.), Ben Nicholson: Drawings Paintings and Reliefs 1911-1968, Thames and Hudson, London, 1969, cat. no.40, illustrated (as circa 1946 (Three Circles)).

The work is constructed of two boards laid on one another, both of which are sound. Generally the work is in excellent original condition. There is a small line of cracking to the paint layer between the upper and lower relief. There are small scuffs and tiny losses to the corners of the upper relief and to the bottom left corner of the lower relief. There are two tiny scuffs to the surface in the upper centre of the composition and one to the bottom centre of the lower relief. Ultraviolet light reveals no apparent signs of retouching. Held under glass in a simple wood frame with a cloth backing; unexamined out of frame. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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Escaping London at the end of August 1939 - just a few days before Britain declared war on Germany on 3rd September - Ben Nicholson and his then wife, Barbara Hepworth, packed up their life and family and made the trip down to Carbis Bay, St Ives. This inauspicious beginning - overcast by the threat of war, and leaving behind an established and important artistic community in London - was  however to bring vital inspiration for not just Nicholson and Hepworth, but was also the impetus for  a blossoming of creativity in this small coastal town. St Ives was to become a thriving artistic hub, with the Nicholsons at its heart: shortly after moving to St Ives they persuaded Naum and Miriam Gabo to join them from London, and as time progressed a growing number of artists gathered in St Ives, including Peter Lanyon, Patrick Heron, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Bryan Wynter and Terry Frost, among others. 

1945 (Three Circles) belongs to this important period that Ben Nicholson spent in St Ives. This new, rugged landscape had a profound effect on his work: as Norbert Lynton states, 'with every day Ben Nicholson’s sense of light, colour and space - and probably also of movement - was refreshed by his experience of sky, land and sea' (Norbert Lynton, Ben Nicholson, Phaidon Press, London, 1993, p.187). Almost from the moment he arrived, he began to turn away from the severity and purity of previous works, and his output both expanded in subject matter, and relaxed in style. Whilst earlier reliefs🎶 and paintings were dominated by areas of pure, unmodulated colour in more strictly geometric, abstract compositions, the present work demonstrates the greater freedom engendered by this move. The light palette of the present work is imbued with the colours of St Ives: it speaks of the bright light, sandy beaches and windswept open spaces of this town at the very south-westernmost tip of the British Isles.

It is not just the colours of the present work which tell of the St Ives landscape, but also its surface. The board has been worked and scrubbed, and is reminiscent of the organic elements which he would have been surrounded by: the rugged coastal cliffs, the grainy sand of coves and inlets, or the worn and bleached driftwood swept up by the sea. Nicholson’s workmanlike engagement with materials is a hallmark of his oeuvre, and it is in such works as the present piece that we begin to see this for the very first time. It is very similar to another work of the same year, 1945 (parrot’s eye): in each, we see an intensely worked surface, upon which a network of interlocking pencil lines impose order. Each are small in size, gem-like works whose diminutive scale only serves to demonstrate Nicholson’s prowess: and indeed the present work was in Barbara Hepworth’s own collection for a number of years. 1945 (Three Circles) is in every sense a perfect illustration of this pivotal St Ives period: just as Nicholson and Hepworth created around them a flourishing artistic scene, the present work shows how the dual theꦑmes of the landscape and abstraction were melded and developed by t🦋his master of modern British art.