We're interviewing George Evans, antiques and fine design expert and co-founder of Bond & Bowery, the online center for antiques and fine design. This week George brought us an abstract oil painting by Peter Nadin entitled View E.

Design2Share: George, please tell us a bit more about this painting.

George Evans: It's a 1986 oil by then-British artist Peter Nadin. It's a large canvas, 62 inches wide by 72 inches high, so it makes quite a statement. View E was part of a series of six Views paintings by Nadin created for a gallery show he had in 1992 at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven.

D2S: Is this work typical of other Nadin works of art?

GE: It's a good question, basically because after 1992, Nadin left the art scene and retreated from the commercial art world. He moved from England with his wife to the U.S. and set up his home base in NYC's Greenwich Village, handy for his art education duties at Cooper Union. He and his wife bought a 500-acre farm in the northern slopes of the Catskills in Cornwallville, New York. He basically went back to nature and tried "to unlearn how to make art." He got in touch with the animals, from hogs to bees, and is now producing works of art that are "relics" of life on his farm.

You might say that View E is a work that shows Nadin's fascination with the road we all travel as human beings. Okay, I'm stretching it here, but the painting invites us to join the artist on a journey into the horizon. It's to me as if Nadin saw a ghostly image of his future work where he would try to return to a less painterly mode. 

D2S: Can you explain that a bit more?

GE: When artists reach mid-career, many of them start to question their artistic direction. Do they like where they've gone before? Is this the direction they want to continue to go in? Do they need to take a break and regain personal bearings? Do they need new artistic inspiration from muses they haven't tapped into before? My guess is that Peter Nadin took the time off, turned to academia from commercial art, changed scenery, spent quality time on his beloved Old Field Farm, and went back to the land. Many artists have gathered inspiration from nature, and Nadin is no exception.

There's a great article from the NY Times about Nadin's love of his farm and how he got in touch with the animals there, called Pork Chops He Has Known.

D2S: Now that we've completely entered the realm of pure speculation and conjecture -- do you think that his farm helped him segue from paintings like View E into something completely different?

GE: His new works are different and more primal. Now you have to realize that Peter Nadin, while not the biggest name in today's contemporary art scene, experienced many years of strong commercial artistic success. His works are in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York's Museum of Modern Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, and museums throughout western Europe.

His First Mark exhibition in 2007 was his return to the commercial art scene, with 76 paintings and sculptures. That included works where he made marks on linen using farm materials, everything from honey and beeswax to chicken eggs and cashmere wool from his sheep. It reduced his artwork to elemental substances and processes.

You can see a video of Peter Nadin describing his Pig Mark Swine Stain collaborative art experience at 2007 Art Basel in Miami Beach.

D2S: What would your advice be for art collectors and homeowners regarding this particular Peter Nadin work?

GE: If you are drawn to View E, that would be your best reason to acquire this work of art. Nadin's work is not expensive. Many collectors specialize in living artists who are widely collected and whose prices are reasonable. Peter Nadin is very talented and is in the middle of his career, so this is often a good time to make a purchase. On a pure investment level, this would be a "buy and hold" proposition, holding the work until the artist has a more meteoric rise in fortunes.

But I prefer to value fine art on a purely aesthetic level. I see this as a beautiful abstract impressionist work. The colors are pleasing and can tie in with most any decorating scheme. And there is an added decorating bonus. Horizon pictures like View E are fantastic additions to any room because they add depth of field and great scale, extending the walls and making a room seem larger.

I hope you look into Peter Nadin's View E. It would add a talented artist's painterly touch to your collection.

Photo credits: Art Nexus, Buy.com