Flowers on a Window Sill (1978) by Winifred Nicholson in a series of fundraising sales held by Olympia Auctions
31ST MARCH 2021
Winifred Nicholson, Flowers on a Window Sill (1978), British and Continental Pictures and Prints, Olympia Auctions, London, 6th May. Estimate: £20,000-£30,000
The British painter Winifred Nicholson is known for combining still life with landscapes, often placing jugs and bowls on window sills that act as framing devices to merge domestic and outdoor scenes. Painted three years before she died, this still life was executed at the Cumbrian home she bought after her divorce from the abstract painter Ben Nicholson in 1938. A number of her windowsill paintings have made over £100,000 at auction, although these tend to come from earlier periods in her career. This work is believed to have been bought from a 1980 exhibition at Kettle’s Gallery in Cambridge by an amateur artist and Kettle’s Yard employee, and passed down to her daughter-in-law. It will be sold as part of a series of fundraising sales held by Olympia Auctions, which is donating half of its reduced 10% commission to the Wallace Collection, Westminster Abbey and the Grange Festival.
