Quarante Huit Quai d’Auteuil
- Artist: Winifred Nicholson
- Date: 1935
- Medium: Oil paint on board
- Dimensions: support: 676 x 1000 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
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About this artwork
This is the 48 Auteuil Quay by Winifred Nicholson. Painted in 1935, this oil on board comes from Nicholson’s Paris period, when she lived at 48 Quai d’Auteuil and rubbed shoulders with Piet Mondrian, Constantin Brancusi, Jean Arp and Jean Hélion. The work is a pure, luminous abstraction that the artist described as “utter purity” in colour, yet colours “wish to fly, to merge, to change each other by their juxtapositions, to radiate, to shine, to withdraw deep within themselves.” In this painting, bands of saturated blues, reds, yellows and greens intersect and overlap, creating a dynamic interplay of light and shade. The geometric shapes—rectangles and elongated rectangles—are arranged with a subtle rhythm that draws the eye across the canvas, hinting at a structural order beneath the vibrant surface. Nicholson’s first abstract works appeared in 1934, and although she continued painting figuratively during her stay in Paris, this piece stands out as a rare example of her early abstract practice. The title itself recalls the address where she worked, anchoring the abstract vision in a concrete, Parisian context.
See it in person
Quarante Huit Quai d’Auteuil is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
