Portrait of Ben Nicholson

Christopher ' Kit ' Wood 1901-1930, was an English painter who briefly attended Liverpool University to study architecture but pursued an artistic career. He trained at the Academy Julienne in Paris where he met some of the most famous artist of the day, Picasso, Cocteau, Diaghilev and others. He was a member of the London Group and the Seven and Five Society where he met and became friends of Ben and Winifred Nicholson, he stayed with them in 1928 in their North country cottage where it is thought this portrait was drawn. The writer Sebastien Faulks wrote a book called 'The Fatal Englishman' which describes the possibility of the place, date and time of this picture, when Wood and Nicholson went out for a day of painting.