London, Christie’s, The New Patrons: Twentieth Century Art from Corporate Collections, January 1992, no. 158.;
London, Crane Kalman Gallery, on loan during the publication of Christopher Andreae’s monograph on Winifred Nicholson, June 2009;
Hastings, Jerwood Gallery, Century: 100 Modern British Artists, 23 October 2016 – 8 January 2017;
London, The Sammy Ofer Centre, London Business School, London|Forward Facing, 26 September 2017 – 2 April 2018;
Berwick-upon-Tweed, Berwick Visual Arts (Granary Gallery), Spirited – Women Artists from The Ingram Collection, 26 May – 13 October 2018;
Woking, The Lightbox, The St Ives School, 6 April – 23 June 2019;
Hull, Ferens Art Gallery, Reflection: British Art in an Age of Change, 17 August 2019 – 5 January 2020;
Woking, The Lightbox, Redressing the Balance: Women Artists from The Ingram Collection, 11 August – 20 September 2020
Winifred Nicholson uses the window to great effect in her painting, whether as a place to put flowers or as a spatial device, looking out at the wider place. Habitually a painter of domestic scenes and landscapes, Winifred Nicholson was a colourist, and in some of her letters to Ben Nicholson, whom she married in 1920 (and divorced in 1938), shows how she identified and wrote about colours as if they were people.
This is thought to be a portrait of Vera Moore, who was a close friend of Winifred Nicholson from the 1920s. Winifred encouraged her to buy a painting by Mondrian (which she hung above her piano) and stayed with her in France after the war in Vera’s house near the Loire, where Winifred painted a number of paintings of the river. Vera was also a friend of Jim Ede, the founder of Kettle’s Yard, and Helen Sutherland, who was Ben and Winifred’s most important collector.
Moore gained an Associate Artist’s Diploma from Trinity College of Music in 1911 and was a pupil of Fanny Davies. Reviewing a concert of hers in the Observer 27th Feb 1927, A H Fox Strangways wrote, “This is an interesting young pianist. She is greatly in earnest, treats the music she plays in a serious and thoughtful manner, and therefore, gets similar treatment for her own playing from the audience….The impression that remains is of a pianist who is intent on doing the just and right thing by what she plays, an excellent point of view and one that deserves recognition”.
, circa 1930)
