Mima prepares for Winifred Nicholson exhibition in October

THE largest presentation of the late artist Winifred Nicholson's work since the 1980s is being planned for the autumn by Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (mima).

Liberation of Colour draws on new research, including archival material never previously seen, and features the Cumberland-based painter's late "prismatic" pictures, which have never been properly examined. The exhibition is organised with Nicholson’s grandson Jovan Nicholson, curator of the recent exhibition Art and Life: Ben Nicholson, Winifred Nicholson, Christopher Wood, Alfred Wallis, William Staite Murray, 1920-1931.

The exhibition focuses on Nicholson’s treatment of light and colour, taking stimulus from the various places in which she lived or visited throughout her adult life, including her native Cumbria.

Featuring 67 paintings, the exhibition covers various genres and styles – landscape, still life and portrait – and includes famous pieces such as The Gate to the Isles (Blue Gate) (1980) alongside pieces never exhibited before such as Outward and Inward (1936).

Nicholson is known for depicting many different flowers. She once said: “My paintings talk in colour and any of the shapes are there to express colour but not outline. The flowers are sparks of light, built of and thrown out into the air as rainbows are thrown, in an arc.”

* Liberation of Colour opens on Saturday, October 22, before continuing to Art Gallery, in Nottingham, from March 4 to June 4, and Falmouth Art Gallery from June 24 to September 16.

Viv Hardwick