William Nicholson, Painter:  Paintings, Woodcuts, Writings, Photographs

William Nicholson (1872-1949), who is known by many for his early woodcuts and the radical posters of the Beggarstaff Brothers in the 1890s, has become recognized as one of the foremost English artists of his time for the whole range of his work. His haunting downland landscapes. his remarkable still lifes, which capture light and colour in an entirely fresh way, and the varied portraits by which he mainly earned his living, form the core of his output and have become greatly prized. This book, compiled by two grandsons, Andrew and Tim Nicholson, is with its representative selection of his pictures the first to do justice to the extraordinary diversity of William Nicholson's oeuvre.

It provides at the same time a documentary account of William Nicholson's life, using contemporary records, articles and reminiscences, and above all quoting extensively from the numerous letters William wrote to his family and friends, many of them to his son Ben Nicholson, and from the letters they wrote to him as well. The majority are from private sources and have never appeared in print before. What emerges in this unique and beautifully illustrated volume is a highly detailed and most appealing portrait of the man and the artist.

What he painted, why and for whom; what spurred him on to experiment and artistic adventure; how he fared in times of elation and anguish; how he combined the serious playfulness of his vision with a deep affection for nature; and how he collaborated with some of the leading men of his day, among them Rudyard Kipling, J.M. Barrie, William Orpen, Edwin Lutyens, Robert Graves, his son-in-law, and Winston Churchill -- all this is revealed, and much more.

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Artists Biography

Sir William Nicholson (1872-1942), wood engraver, illustrator, writer of children’s books, theatre designer, and lithographer was born at 12 London Road, Newark-on-Trent to William Newzam Nicholson, an engineer at the Trent ironworks and his second wife Anne Elizabeth Prior.

After studying at Magnus Grammar School where he was first introduced to drawing, Nicholson attended Bushey School of Art run by Hubert von Herkomer. Here he met fellow student Mabel Pryde (1871-1918) who would become his wife, and she would introduce Nicholson to her brother, the artist James Pryde (1869-1941). All three moved to Eight Bells, Denham, Buckinghamshire, where Nicholson and Pryde would collaborate on the famous series of lithographic posters they disseminated under the pseudonym J. & W. Beggerstaff.

Nicholson moved to The Grange, Rottingdean in 1909, and from here he painted the surrounding Sussex Downs. His influences were painters such as Manet and Whistler – painters still within the realist tradition; and whilst over the course of his life his paintings became lighter in colour and less constrained in their verisimilitude, he never responded to the impressionist and post-impressionist developments of the period. Nicholson also very much admired Velázquez, and his still-life paintings between the wars – compositions of lusterware, glasses and vases, flowers and fruit - bear clear evidence this influence.

Nicholson and Mabel had four children – Ben Nicholson (1894-1982) the abstract painter; Anthony, who was killed in action during the First World War; Nancy (1899-1978) painter and wife of the poet Robert Graves, and the leading modernist architect and designer Christopher Nicholson (1904-1948). Nicholson was sociable and much liked. After Mabel’s death from influenza he married Edith Stuart Wortley (1890-1958) and they had a daughter, Liza (b.1920). He always had an affinity for children and wrote several children’s books -‘Clever Bill’ and ‘The Pirate Twins’ (both 1926), and he illustrated Margery Williams’s enchanting book ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’ (1922). Nicholson died at his home, Little Triton, Blewbury, Berkshire in 1949.

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