Art on Television #1: Fake or Fortune returns

BBC has two new series starting this week

• Series 7 of Fake or Fortune starts TONIGHT at 9pm on BBC1
• Series 3 of Britain's Lost Masterpieces  is on BBC4 and starts at 9pm on Wednesday night - see tomorrow's blog post.

Fake or Fortune

The team for Series 7 is the same as the last series - Fiona Bruce and Philip Mould
What's changed is that it now occupies a prime time slot of 9pm on BBC1 (albeit in  dead month TV wise).

There are 5 episodes in this series programmes but we only know the artists involved in the first two episodes so far. What we know so far is.....

Episode 1 - British artist William Nicholson

The subject of Episode 1 of Series 7 - and those pears look a bit suspect to me...

Can the team prove that a beautiful still life of a glass jug and pears is the work of celebrated British artist William Nicholson? 

Portrait of William Nicholson

Normally the first episode is a cracker - but I confess I've never heard of the artist, although had worked out it was likely that William Nicholson had a connection to Ben Nicholson (he's the father) !  I'm wondering if this one is a very good example of techniques used in a case.

The problem with the painting is it cost £165,000 to buy - and Patricia Read, the expert on Nicholson, left it out of the Catalogue raisonne - which effectively reduces the painting to the value of a decorative item.

If you want to do your homework and get acquainted with him before tonight.....

REFERENCE:

• Sir William Nicholson 1872–1949 | Tate - and I now know who he is - i.e. the painter of Miss Jekyll's Gardening Boots - and I do know him!
• William Nicholson | Art UK - 115 artworks by Nicholson on this page. I suggest for the amateur detectives amongst us you pay particular attention to 
• the still life paintings generally - and
• this painting of pears in particular
• A life less ordinary | The Guardian (Kathryn Hughes) - He has been dismissed as a conventional old duffer. But William Nicholson's work is packed with sly subversion
• A Bloomsbury Family by Sir William Orpen | National Galleries Scotland - depicts the Nicholson family. 

Nicholson's wife, the painter Mabel Pryde, is standing by the door. Sitting at the table from left to right are the Nicholson children: Nancy, who married the writer Robert Graves; Tony, who died during the war in 1918; and Ben, who would become Britain's foremost abstract artist. Standing in the foreground is Christopher or 'Kit'

'A Bloomsbury Family' depicts the artist William Nicholson and his family.

Episode 2 - Toulouse Lautrec