Surfaces in pale earth colours - brown, grey and buff - scraped and rescraped until they look like a wall ready for papering. Backgrounds overlaid with strong accents in brown and black or with patches of red, blue and green, bright as flags on a yacht. The whole articulated by hard pencil lines, some ruled, some making simple curves and circles. All of these things can be found both in Ben Nicholson's landscapes and still lifes and in later abstract or near abstract works. The sharp lines aren't there in the early faux-naïf landscapes made in the late 1920s - the firm mono-line draughtsmanship took over later - but the colour schemes are already established.

LRB 20 November 2008 | PDF Download