Greek and Turkish forms

Greek and Turkish forms is one of three portfolios, including Architectural Suite and Ben Nicholson 3, which were commissioned by Bernhard Baer at Ganymed Press and published between 1966 and 1971. Together they represent the artist’s brief but intense period of experimentation in the medium of etching. Nicholson’s home in Switzerland overlooking Lago Maggiore was very close to the atelier of the printer François Lafranca. This proximity facilitated a fruitful working relationship, and allowed Nicholson the freedom to experiment and improvise in a way which would not have been possible if he had had to travel to a printer in Zurich or London.

`He liked the accidental and didn't wish me to polish the plates except for a summary cleaning when they were really too badly scratched.  After having cut the sheets of metal, I would cover them with a thin layer of asphalt varnish. Ben Nicholson engraved the plates at his house and we would acidify them in my studios.  Then there followed the pulling of proof[s]; I would make trials with different grounds and would bring them to Ben Nicholson, who would decide, taking his time, which ones were to serve as his models…often a series was made with different inks, sometimes a whole run would be destroyed and printed over again with a different background’ (F. Lafranca, quoted in: J. Lewison, London, 2007, pp. 55-56).

The inspiration for Greek and Turkish forms came from a holiday in the Aegean in the summer of 1967 which Nicholson spent with Paul R. Jolles, subsequently president of the Kunsthalle Bern, and his wife. Jolles later recalled how `while we went swimming, Ben drew architectural details in monasteries, tomb stones in museum gardens, sun dials, trees. He made us see what we were looking for but did not perceive’ (quoted in: S. Grandini, Lugano, 1984). In a letter written shortly after the trip, Nicholson describes his own impressions: `…the most interesting part of the trip was Patmos, perhaps the most beautiful of all the Greek islands I’ve seen - & then we landed also in Turkey. Suddenly the East! Camels on the ground & storks resting on chimney tops. I made some drawings…amongst others several of a most beautiful stone sundial – I also made an etching of it…’ (quoted in: J. Lewison, London, 2007, p. 54).

Nicholson relished the linear quality of the etched line: ‘The bite of the steel point into the metal is a terrific experience when all goes right & the necessity I am finding to reduce the idea to a series of lines is interesting’. The effect, as Herbert Read commented when describing Nicholson’s etchings, is both linear and lyrical: `it is the quality of draughtsmanship that matters, and it is this that distinguishes a great master of the craft’ (quoted in: J. Lewison, London, 2007, p. 54-55).

A distinctive feature of the etchings which Nicholson made with Lafranca was his use of irregular shaped copper plates. Nicholson disliked the convention of the cut mount, which he described as equivalent to` imprisoning a bird in a cage’. Instead he preferred the indented relief of the plate mark to `frame’ the work. His meticulous attention to detail extended to the placement of the number, signature and date, which he preferred to be positioned asymmetrically on the sheet. Titles were written on the back of the sheet to avoid unnecessarily disturbing the image.

For the deluxe portfolio of Greek and Turkish forms Nicholson delicately hand-coloured an additional plate of column & tree (Lafranca 70). Complete portfolios are uncommon at auction, with only four sets appearing at auction in the last forty years.