The inspiration for the present exhibition, this fragment of a female Cycladic torso, was once owned by the great British artist Ben Nicholson (1894–1982). His lifelong fascination with Cycladic art is one of the clearest through-lines in the development of British modernism, shaping both the logic of his abstraction, his sense of proportion, and his belief that a timeless, architectonic purity ran beneath all great art.

Although relatively small and often fragmentary, these Early Bronze Age marbles from the Greek Cycladic islands have a monumental presence. The female figures with folded arms represent the canonical images of this period and possess a silent, inviolate power. Made over 4000 years ago, they occupy an important and seminal position in western European art. Consisting of 31 main islands, their isolation allowed a clear aesthetic and cultural identity to develop over thousands of years. Most Early Cycladic figures are female, and are represented nude, with breasts and incised pubic triangles to indicate their gender. As such, they are probably linked to ideas of fertility and reproduction, which was often a focus of ancient Mediterranean religions. With their feet and toes pointed downward, most of the figures cannot independently stand upright. They may have therefore been designed to lie on their backs. Indeed, their folded arms also suggest repose.

The Early Cycladic II phase is generally categorised as spanning from c.2700 – 2200 B.C., with the present torso likely dating to the second half of this period, c. 2500 – 2200 B.C. Its relatively small size, stiff pose, square shoulders, slim form and location of the folded arms and breasts associate the work with the examples found at the Chalandriani / Dokathismata sites, which are often dated to around 2500 – 2200 B.C. There is some chronological overlapping between these stylistic variants, but with the subsequent Chalandriani objects we see the disintegration of the canonical figure and more unorthodoxy introduced into these representations (Getz-Preziosi, 1987: 78). Unusual details like the chevron markings on the neck of the present figure are very rare but can be seen on the diagonal baldric strap of a male figure from the Keros – Syros culture. Those on our torso contain encrustation within them, which attests to their antiquity and can be compared to the white substance found in the grooves of Cycladic ceramics (Davis, 1987: 9).

Nicholson first encountered Cycladic sculpture in London in the late 1920s. These objects, newly popular among avant-garde circles, were also circulating among influential Paris dealers and collectors. In a letter from Nicholson to his wife Barbara Hepworth, dated 26 April 1966, he notes: ‘We have a rather beautiful—very beautiful—Cycladic violin (very small) and a Cycl. Small head...which Charles G(impel) gave us—they stand on our wooden mantelpiece’ (Lee Beard, ed., Ben Nicholson: Writings and Ideas, 2019, pp. 69–70). In an earlier letter, dated 20 April 1956, he writes to Hepworth: “...I don’t know of any work which I feel goes better with mine unless it’s Cycladic or some other primitive works” (ibid., p. 126).

For Nicholson, Cycladic pieces offered something radical: a complete reduction of the human form into planar geometry and harmonic proportion, millennia before abstraction. They gave him confidence that abstraction was not a rupture but a continuity with the deepest human past. They also represented archetypal examples of what he called ‘absolute line’—single, continuous outlines with no pictorial noise. In Nicholson’s white reliefs of the 1930s, the incised circles, carefully bevelled edges, and flattened planes clearly echo this. Both Nicholson’s reliefs and Cycladic idols present themselves frontally, inviting contemplation rather than narrative. He saw this as a universal and timeless visual language. In a 1959 interview with The Times, he listed such sculpture among his primary artistic influences, alongside Uccello, Goya, Picasso and Mondrian. In part, through Nicholson’s championing, Cycladic and other prehistoric art graduated from being regarded by some as ‘primitive’ curiosities, to exemplars of perfect visual economy.

Ben Nicholson met the artist Angela Verren Taunt at a Christmas party in 1971, after which a close friendship developed. In her memoir of Nicholson, Angela recalled that during her first visit to his studio there were still-life objects all around and a beautiful book on Cycladic art.