The Nicholson Women

15 x 15.25 inches / 39 x 39 cms

Exhibited:

The Leicester Galleries, London

Front cover:

Winifred NICHOLSON (1893-1981)

A Nursery Bunch c. 1927

Oil on board

Dartington Hall Trust Collection

26 x 21.75 inches / 66 x 55.2 cms

1. Winifred NICHOLSON (1893-1981)

Cissy Noble and Kate c. 1930

Oil on board

Mabel Pryde NICHOLSON (1871-1918)

Edie NICHOLSON (1890-1958)

Winifred NICHOLSON (1893-1981)

Nancy NICHOLSON (1899-1977)

E.Q. NICHOLSON (1908-1992)

Kate NICHOLSON (1929-2019)

Rachel NICHOLSON (b. 1934)

Rafaele APPLEBY (b. 1961)

Ophelia APPLEBY (b. 1996)

Here I stand, paintbrush in hand, surrounded by a circle of strong creative women. The feeling here is one of inspiration and collaboration – support and encouragement rather than competition. It is not a matriarchy, it is a sisterhood. The more I find out about these women, some I know well and some I never met, the more I love the generosity of spirit and the more I see this reflected in the work they do.

To be raised in a family of artists is a blessing, mostly. To grow within a family of strong women is a blessing, totally. There is no magic “it’s in the blood” card that allows anyone to be an artist simply because they are descended from one. In fact it is often necessary to work twice as hard to prove yourself, to step out of the shadow of expectations. Even more so for a woman often referred to as ‘ wife of…’ or ‘daughter of…’ etc. The work of these women show what can be achieved through creative persistence. They are icons for the young of today.

They step out of the competitive arena that those on the periphery of the art world like to impose. The support of these women embraced all, fellow women artists, children and those men for whom they were often overlooked. The studio built by Lutyens in the garden of Mabel and William’s home in Rottingdean, was known as Mabel’s studio, which William also used. This was because it was the sale of one of Mabel’s paintings that paid for it. They both used it – William only taking precedence when he had a paid commission.

Mabel was Ben’s first artistic inspiration, and later Ben said he learnt about colour from Winifred and about form from Barbara. This creative conversation between Winifred and Ben continued throughout their lives, in letters where they shared artistic thoughts and ideas and regularly sought each other’s opinions about their own exhibitions.

As an artist, everything you do has some sort of influence upon your art. It is not only when you are holding a paintbrush (or pencil or chisel) that you are creative. Everything forms a part of the creative process. Motherhood is a powerful creativity and how that is woven into the artwork is different for each. It is this inclusion of family life that, for me, makes these works both powerful and gentle at the same time.

From the time that Winifred’s youngest child (my father) was very small, she was effectively a single mother, and I am frequently asked how she managed to continue to paint with so much energy, whilst having 3 young children to care for. It is true that she was fortunate enough to have help, yet every young mother will know that even if your children are at nursery or school for part or all of the day, your energies are often completely depleted. Winifred wrote that she thought of her painting as her fourth child, and each of the four children deserved an equal amount of attention. Thus she found a balance between art and motherhood. Painting was part of the family. I have found this thought very helpful whilst bringing up my own 5 children and painting, making it 6 children by Winifred’s counting.

Sometimes laying the paintbrush aside to attend to children is not so good, the children miss seeing an artist at work, and are denied the opportunity of seeing the possibilities for their own future. How many children have felt that their mothers don’t work because they only see them in context with how they respond to children, whilst all the time the mother has a burning desire to paint or play music or write etc. Far better that the children see her doing these things.

Mabel made painting part of the family by making her children the subjects of her paintings. She always paid them for sitting, respecting the effort of sitting still. Later her daughter Nancy had a painting accepted for the front cover of Vogue magazine, when Vogue discovered that she was only in her teens and also female, they reduced the amount they paid her. Nancy was, understandably, furious and campaigned for equal pay for women artists.

Like Winifred I have studied the educational ideas of Maria Montessori (each of us running a small school for some years), this is not insignificant as, among other things, Montessori teaches that each child has their own individual learning plan and it is our job as educators to facilitate this. Once you realise that children have their own agenda and it is our job to guide their discoveries rather than to fill empty vessels, then there is some energy left for your own voyage of discovery. You can sit side by side to explore this learning, either metaphorically or physically, as I did when I lived and painted with Winifred.

These women also often collaborated or worked side by side. Nancy and EQ would work on fabric designs together. Edie Nicholson painted alongside both William and Winifred and designed with William, both the costumes for a Massine ballet and the Zodiac rag rug now in the V and A. Winifred travelled widely with Kate on painting trips. Rachel visited Winifred in Cumbria to paint. My daughter and I continue this tradition and will paint together when travelling, and always there is conversation about art and creativity.

The joy is that the benefits of growing up in this kind of circle are available to everyone, if we are aware of the creative environment. For parents I would say this: please fill your walls with art, with real art not reproductions. If you can, meet the artists who made the art, if you cannot, then tell your children about these artists and why you love their work. Show them that the artists are real people and your children will realise that they too can choose to take this path.

Women artists, such as those in this exhibition, have been waving this flag for some time, let us respond with our own creativity and enthusiasm.

Rafaele Appleby

NICHOLSON WOMEN FAMILY TREE

WINIFRED ROBERTS (NICHOLSON)

1893-1981 artist BEN NICHOLSON

1894-1982

JAKE NICHOLSON

1927-2003

KATE NICHOLSON

1929-2019 artist

ANDREW NICHOLSON

1931-2012 RAFAELE NICHOLSON (APPLEBY) b.1961 artist OPHELIA APPLEBY b.1996 artist

MABEL SCOTT LAUDER PRYDE (NICHOLSON) 1871-1918 artist

BARBARA HEPWORTH 1903- 1975

SIR WILLIAM NICHOLSON 1872-1949

NANCY NICHOLSON

1899-1977 artist, illustrator & designer

EDITH MINNIE PHILLIPS (NICHOLSON)

1890-1958 artist

KIT NICHOLSON 1904-1948

RACHEL NICHOLSON b.1934 artist SARAH NICHOLSON b.1934

SIMON NICHOLSON 1934-1990

LOUISA NICHOLSON (CREED) b.1937

TIM NICHOLSON b.1939

E.Q. MYERS (NICHOLSON)

1908-1992 artist & fabric designer

NICHOLSON (KASMIN) b.1936

JANE

We would like to thank Rafaele Appleby, Harriet Lodge, Tim and Catherine Nicholson, Desmond Banks, Jonathan Banks, Felix Kidd, Jovan Nicholson, Sir Roland and Lady Jackson for their kindness and for their generous support.

Thanks to The Fleming Collection, Pallant House Gallery and Dartington Hall Trust Collection for very kindly lending their wonderful paintings to our exhibition.

Sally Kalman, Robin Light, Andrew Kalman, Nadia Moghaddam-Pour

I knew my great aunt Winifred in a family context. She was the sister of my grandfather. We saw her on high days and holidays during our visits to Cumberland. She, like my grandfather, was already old when I knew her. Her children were grown and her sons with children of their own. I don’t remember ever meeting Kate (Winifred’s daughter) face to face. I remember a loved friend attempting to teach her to drive, and the collective family reaction to the possibility of Kate on the road. Then she was in Cornwall and her earlier friendship with my mother left untended. I knew her work though and my grandfather did too. I am proud to have inherited the red piece by Kate Nicholson which always hung in his kitchen in Cumberland. Now it hangs in mine. I knew a lot of Winifred’s works too. Family visits to houses with excellent pictures hung here and there led to a kind of familiarity. I took this privilege for granted even as I enjoyed and learned. Winifred herself was known to my generation as a bit well, not odd, not different just eccentric perhaps: she would during tea parties for example seize one of her own pictures from the wall, examine it closely and sometimes reclaim it whether the “owner “ wanted that or not. I should be clear, there were swaps, my parents were given a landscape for their wedding gift which was changed at least once. The safest way to keep your painting by Winifred was to live a fair distance away. As a child I thought this was a usual way to go on, in fact I still think it’s funny and I think I understand it, she put something of herself into each work, that un-nameable something wasn’t sold with any picture or given away, it was the woman herself. The woman who had a real focus on her work and what was necessary to enable that work, her sons and daughter and eventually grandchildren and her siblings. …… To me she was always different but so was her sister and my grandfather too. All three were creative talented gardeners. Winifred’s garden at Banks Head was both a site for painting as well as frequently featuring in her work. At those times life went on around Winifred while she concentrated fiercely and worked and worked.

At her great exhibition which collected much of her work under one roof I grew to a realisation that the familiar domestic pictures had a place, important places in a much more impressive wider world. It was the account of her working relationships with Piet Mondrian and Ben Nicholson (while they were married and after) as well as many others that made me realise that what was so everyday to me had changed worlds in so many ways. I also remember my brother coming home from a visit to Tate St Ives so impressed that his great aunts works were a major feature. It is quite a moment when what is known and familiar is recognised as nationally important and forming a part of history. Similarly with the work of Nancy Nicholson, which is so familiar to me in domestic circumstances: my grandfather had her fabrics as well as some pictures, as did my grandmother and eventually they too were distributed among family members.

I inherited a picture by Winifred’s granddaughter Raf. My father thought she was extremely talented and encouraged her to sell more and more. I’ve not seen many examples of Raf’s work. I am aware through other family connections that Raf is one of those people who spill over with creativity in lots of media and with a generosity of spirit that is humbling to witness. Won’t it be fun if her children are also creative! It occurs to me that at least one of Winifred’s great grandchildren is a virtuoso musician, creativity knows no classification!

My awareness of these exceptional women and their work is through (my own) domestic family circumstances as well as through theirs. Yes, it’s a well connected family with amazing tastes and the resources to enjoy their interests. Overall the Nicholson women were clearly each unique in their creativity, and in their production even through domestic constraints. Imagine the pleasure they have given in their different ways, the thoughts they have provoked, the ways they have opened up the world to untold numbers of people.

Harriet Lodge

34 x 36 inches / 86.5 x 91.5 cms

A Bloomsbury Family 1907, by William Orpen (1878-1931) (not in exhibition)

Painting depicts: Ben Nicholson, Christopher Nicholson, Nancy Nicholson, Tony Nicholson, Sir William Nicholson, Mabel Pryde. Credit: National Galleries of Scotland, Presented by the Scottish Modern Arts Association, 1964

39.75 x 24.75 inches / 101 x 62.5 cms

2. Mabel Pryde NICHOLSON (1871-1918)

The Artist’s Daughter, Nancy as a Harlequin 1910

Oil on canvas

The Fleming Collection

12.6 x 10.6 inches / 32 x 27 cms

Signed on the reverse Elizabeth Drury 1921

Reproduced by permission of Jonathan Banks

3.

Edith NICHOLSON (1890-1958)

Portrait of William Nicholson 1921

Oil on board

William Nicholson and Edith Nicholson at the Derby c.1919

A View from the Old Vicarage c.1954

Work on paper

11.8 x 9.8 inches / 30 x 25 cms

Reproduced by permission of Jonathan Banks

4.

Edith NICHOLSON (1890-1958)

Here and There, Spheres 1936 oil on board

28 x 35.75 inches / 71 x 91 cms

Signed, titled, dated on reverse

Provenance: Nicholson Family

5. Winifred NICHOLSON (1893-1981)

To & Fro 1935-6

Watercolour on buff paper 12 x 15 inches / 30 x 38 cms

Exhibited: Third Eye Centre, Glasgow Dec. 1979, ‘Winifred Nicholson: paintings 1900-1978’, 68 works) 44 pp, 1 colour plate, 13 b&w; Tate Gallery, ‘Winifred Nicholson’, 3 June – 2 August 1987, cat. no. 68; Arts Council, Southbank Centre, Hayward Gallery, 1987, ‘Winifred Nicholson Tour’, cat. no. 68

Provenance: Nicholson Family

Winifred Nicholson

6. Winifred NICHOLSON (1893-1981)

12.5 x 16.5 inches / 31.5 x 42 cms

Signed and titled on reverse

Provenance: Nicholson Family

7.

Winifred NICHOLSON (1893-1981)

Stormlight on Flowers c.1955

Pastel, crayon, oil and silver paint

18 x 24 inches / 46 x 61 cms

Exhibited:

The Leicester Galleries, London

Lefevre Gallery, London (4182)

Provenance: Nicholson Family

8. Winifred NICHOLSON (1893-1981)

Wild Flowers of the Garrigue c.1935

Oil on canvas

9.

Winifred NICHOLSON (1893-1981)

The Isle of Man from St. Bees c. 1945

Oil on canvas

24 x 24 inches / 60.9 x 60.9 cms

Exhibited:

Winifred Nicholson Liberation of Colour, Middlesborough Institute of Modern Art, 22 October 2016- 12 February 2017; Djanogly Art Gallery, Nottingham 4 March-4 June 2017; Falmouth Art Gallery, 24 June-16 September 2017;

Literature:

Winifred Nicholson Liberation of Colour by Jovan Nicholson, published in 2016 by Philip Wilson Publishers

Oil on canvas

25 x 30 inches / 63.5 x 76.2 cms

Exhibited:

Crane Kalman Gallery, 1984

Provenance: Private Collection

10.

Winifred NICHOLSON (1893-1981)

Potsloan c. 1978

Nancy in Profile 1912, by Sir William Nicholson (1872-1949) (not in exhibition)

oil on canvas

23.7 x 21.6 inches / 60.3 x 54.9 cms

© Desmond Banks / Bridgeman Images

x 7 inches / 26 x 18 cms

11. Nancy NICHOLSON (1899-1977)

Auntie’s Skirt, The End 1918

Watercolour on paper

10.2

10 x 14.1 inches / 25.5 x 35.8 cms

House Gallery, Chichester, UK, (On loan from a Private Collection, 2013)

12.

E.Q. NICHOLSON (1908-1992)

Boveridge from Blagdon c. 1949

Oil on canvas

Pallant

Black Jug 1946

x 18.5 inches / 36.5 x 47 cms

Gallery, Chichester, UK (On loan from a Private Collection, 2013)

13.

E.Q. NICHOLSON (1908-1992)

A

Gouache, ink and collage on paper

14.4

Pallant House

E.Q. Nicholson

Mixed media on paper

16.5 x 21 inches / 42 x 53.3 cms

Dartington Hall Trust Collection

14.

E.Q. NICHOLSON (1908-1992)

The Dying Leek

9 x 12 inches / 22.9 x 30.5 cms

15.

Rachel NICHOLSON (b.1934)

Easter, Halsetown 2004/9

Acrylic on paper

A Yorkshire Landscape 1988

16.

Rachel NICHOLSON (b.1934)

Acrylic on paper

11.5 x 15.5 inches / 29 x 39.5 cms

Rachel Nicholson

17.

Rachel NICHOLSON (b.1934)

Still Life with Kate’s Mug 1985

Oil on board

8.25 x 11.5 inches / 21 x 29.2 cms

12 x 10.2 inches / 30.5 x 26 cms

Provenance: Private Collection

Interior of Kate’s house in St. Ives, c. 1971

Credit: Pamela Chandler, © Jovan Nicholson

18.

Kate NICHOLSON (1929-2019)

Rich Pearl c. 1960’s

oil on board

19.

Kate NICHOLSON (1929-2019)

Villa oil on canvas

25.8 x 32.3 inches / 65.5 x 82 cms

Shepherds c. 1979

oil on board

16 x 20 inches / 40.5 x 50.5 cms

Provenance: Private Collection

20. Kate NICHOLSON (1929-2019)

Rafaele Appleby

photograph credit: Saffy Appleby

21.

Rafaele APPLEBY (b. 1961)

Safe

Pastel on paper

22 x 30 inches / 56 x 76 cms

22.

Ophelia APPLEBY (b. 1996)

The Actor Again 2024

24 x 20 inches / 61 x 51 cms

Ophelia Appleby

BIOGRAPHIES

MABEL PRYDE NICHOLSON (1871-1918) was the younger sister of the artist James Ferrier Pryde. She was the first wife of Sir William Nicholson (1872-1949) whom she met when they were both students at Herkomer’s Academy in Hertfordshire. They had four children; Ben, Tony, Nancy and Kit. (Ben Nicholson - the Modernist artist). Most of Mabel’s paintings use her own children as models in striking, characterful poses, sometimes in theatrical costumes; the family were avid theatregoers who kept a costume box and the figure of Harlequin was a favourite subject.

Mabel started to paint seriously when her fourth child Kit went to school. Then in the years before the First World War her paintings flourished and became part of family life. ‘Prydie’ participated regularly in group exhibitions at the Goupil Gallery and she had a solo show at the Chenil Gallery in 1912 in London.  After Mabel sadly died of pneumonia in 1918, she was given a retrospective exhibition at the Goupil Gallery in 1920 with the help of her son, Ben.

In 1919, following Mabel’s death, William married EDITH STUART-WORTLEY (born Edith Minnie Phillips; 1890-1958). Edie and her husband Jack Stuart -Wortley had been family friends of the Nicholsons for some time before the Great War. In 1918 Major Jack Stuart Wortley and Mabel and William’s son Tony were fighting in France. When Jack was reported missing, Prydie sought to support Edie with her two young children, John and Anne, during the very difficult months before he was confirmed killed. Then when Prydie herself died, and shortly after Tony was killed, the remaining members of the two families shared a common grief.

There had been a close relationship between Edie and Ben, who painted each other’s portraits in 1917. However after the war it was the friendship between Edie and William that blossomed, and they were married in 1919. William and Edie went on honeymoon together with her children, to the South of France. Their daughter Liza was born in 1920. That year William returned with his new family to Rottingdean, where he had lived at The Grange with Prydie before the war, moving in to Burne-Jones’ old house, North End House, on the other side of the Rottingdean pond from The Grange.

Edith first exhibited as Elizabeth Drury in 1924 but later painted under her own name, Edith Nicholson. She also exhibited with the 7&5 Society.

WINIFRED NICHOLSON (1893-1981)

Born in Oxford to Cecilia and Charles Roberts. Grandmother Rosalind Howard, the ‘Radical Countess’ was involved in Liberal politics, Temperance Reform and Women’s suffrage. Winifred’s father was elected Liberal MP for Lincoln (1906-1918), a member of the Asquith government. Grandfather George Howard was a painter and friend of the Pre-Raphaelites and Winifred’s first artistic mentor.

Winifred attends Byam Shaw School of Art 1912. Charles Roberts takes Winifred and her sister to India 1919/20. Winifred fills her sketchbook with bright Indian coloured watercolours.

Winifred meets the painter Ben Nicholson while he was visiting his sister Nancy at Boar’s Hill, Oxford and they paint together in Devon and Cornwall. They marry and honeymoon in Italy and then settle in Villa Capriccio, Castagnola above Lake Lugano.

Each winter was spent at Villa Capriccio returning to England for the summers, travelling via Paris where they see works by Modern artists.

They find Banks Head an old farmhouse on the Roman Wall in Cumberland and move in in 1924. Winifred joins the 7&5 Society in 1925 and exhibited alongside Ben, Ivon Hitchens, Christopher Wood, John Piper, David Jones, Henry Moore, Frances Hodgkins, Barbara Hepworth and Cedric Morris

Ben and Winifred meet Kit Wood, whose work they admire – a strong friendship develops. They meet Jim Ede, who becomes a friend and later keeps an open house at his home Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge.

In 1927 while hanging an exhibition at the Beaux Arts Gallery, London Winifred fell through a trapdoor and seriously injured her back while pregnant with Jake. She is taken to hospital and it is thought that she would not recover but with help of a Christian Science practitioner she recovers. She retained an interest in Christian Science for the rest of her life. Jake is born.

Show at the Lefevre Gallery, London with William Staite Murray in 1928. Winifred and Ben stay in Cornwall in 1928, in the Autumn they stay in St. Ives and Kit joins them with his friend Frosca Munster. The Nicholsons spend Christmas with Ben’s father William Nicholson at Sutton Veny, Wiltshire. In 1929 the 7&5 Society exhibits paintings by Winifred, Ben, Kit Wood and Alfred Wallis from their recent visit to Cornwall.

Her daughter Kate (1929) and son Andrew (1931) are born at Banks Head.

1920 Solo exhibition at the Leicester Galleries where Winifred shows Cornish paintings and portraits of the family. Kit Wood shares his exhibition in Paris with Ben, and the family travels to Paris with Ben.

1931 Ben goes for a holiday to Happisbrugh in Norfolk and meets Barbara Hepworth . Later that year Ben leaves Winifred and the children and lives in London with Barbara Hepworth. He keeps in contact with Winifred, visiting and they correspond frequently.

Winifred and her young children go to Fishbourne, Isle of Wight where they stay until Spring 1932,then move to Par, Cornwall, 1932 Winifred moves to Paris with her three children. Meets artists, Naum Gabo, Alberto Giacometti, Alexander Calder, Wassily Kandinsky, Constantin Brancusi, Piet Mondrian. She paints abstract pictures. Article Unknown Colour published under name Winifred Dacre in Circle, International Survey of Constructive Art, 1937, edited by Leslie Martin, Ben Nicholson, Naum Gabo. Winifred writes ‘..colours wish to fly, to merge, to change each other by their juxtapositions, to radiate, to shine, to withdraw deep within themselves. For a long time they have been nailed down like carpets.

Lives and helps her parents at Boothby in Cumberland. Her father Charles Roberts is Chairman of Cumberland County Council 1938-58. Her brother Wilfrid Roberts is Liberal MP for Cumberland North 1935-50. Winifred continues to support local Liberal politics, she farms, keeps goats and bees, runs a small school at Banks Head.

Winifred makes painting trips with the poet Kathleen Raine to the Hebrides and Western Scotland in 1950-53. They often stay

at Sandaig, Gavin Maxwell’s house near Glenelg with views out to the Hebrides.

Winifred moves back to Banks Head in 1960. Winifred and daughter Kate make long Spring visits to paint in Greece throughout the sixties and frequently go on painting trips together in the Seventies to Italy, Sicily, Corfu, Morocco, the Isle of Eigg, Hebrides. In 1979 they are accompanied to Greece by Jovan Nicholson -Winifred’s grandson.

Meets physicist Prof Glen Schaefer in 1975 who rekindles Winifred’s interest in prisms.

First exhibition of her abstract works from the 1930’s Paris period at Crane Kalman Gallery 1975.

1981 March Winifred dies at Banks Head.

Mabel’s daughter NANCY NICHOLSON (1899-1977) was an artist and prolific textile designer who founded Poulk Press with the poet Geoffrey Taylor in 1930 at Tytherington, Wiltshire, after her marriage to Robert Graves had broken down. Nancy’s creativity was devoted to textile design, but letterpress printing formed an important second string. Nancy would have been familiar with block-printing from a young age and was strongly influenced by her father William Nicholson who had published woodcuts for Twelve Portraits and The Square Book of Animals. She insisted on hand block printing all her designs, claiming that if they were printed by machine they would lose their ‘life’.

Nancy had married Robert Graves in 1918; their four children were born between 1919 and 1924. Nancy’s early work included illustrations for poems by Robert, for example The Owl, a magazine edited by Robert Graves and William Nicholson in 1919. She illustrated book covers for An Indian Day, 1927 by Edward Thompson and Tolstoy’s A Prince of Outlaws.

Nancy’s output was relatively small and making a living was hard as a single mother.  Commissions for letterheads came from a small circle of family and friends in the thirties. In 1937 Nancy and Geoffrey printed notepaper for her brother Ben Nicholson and for Barbara Hepworth. The Whitworth in Manchester have a good collection of her fabrics.

E.Q. (ELSIE QUEEN) NICHOLSON (1908-1992) was a designer and painter whose work was marked by a natural lyricism and a delight in space, light and movement of line. The daughter of the novelist L.H.Myers and his American born wife Elsie Mullen Palmer, she grew up in a circle of artists including Frank Dobson and Cedric Morris. After training in Paris she worked on Batik for Marion Dorn and designed rugs. Her interest in images of the natural world would later translate into explorations of plant forms, in paintings and in her best known applied design. ‘‘Runner Bean’’ (c.1950) which appeared both as furnishing fabric (used on H.M Yacht Britannia) and as one of her hand printed wallpapers for Cole & Son.

In 1931 she married the architect Kit Nicholson, the youngest son of William Nicholson and Mabel Pryde. They had three children; two daughters Jane Kasmin and textile designer Louisa Creed and a son, the painter Tim Nicholson. After her marriage she assisted in the office her husband ran with Hugh Casson - they produced distinctive modernist architecture that was pioneering for it’s time. E.Q. designed the interiors of Nicholson’s building for the London Gliding Club at Dunstable in 1936.

From about 1936 until 1950 E.Q. worked with her sister-in-law Nancy Nicholson, who created textile designs for her brother Ben Nicholson and for his wife Barbara Hepworth at her Poulk Press.

E.Q.’s designs from this time include Black Goose (1936) and Daisy and Seaweed (1949). Some of these designs were later screenprinted by Edinburgh weavers.

From 1941 to 1956 E.Q. worked intensely as a painter, in gouache, crayon and collage. She exhibited with Peter Rose Pulham and Keith Vaughan at the Hanover Gallery in 1950.

RACHEL NICHOLSON was born in 1934, one of triplets, to the artists Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth. The family moved from Hampstead to St. Ives, Cornwall in 1939.

Rachel had no formal training and started painting in her early 40’s after her youngest child had started school. She married the Alzheimer’s researcher Dr. Michael Kidd and has three children.

Rachel began her career with still life compositions which developed over the years into a range of landscape images from

Cumbria, Derbyshire and the West country where she spent most of her childhood.

In 1979 Rachel had her first solo exhibition at the Field Gallery in Nottingham. From 1980 she exhibited regularly at Montpelier Studio in London.

Rachel inherited her love of still-life objects from her father Ben Nicholson and he form his father William Nicholson.

KATE NICHOLSON (1929-2019) was a painter, daughter of Ben Nicholson and Winifred Nicholson, and studied at Bath Academy of Art 1949-1954. She taught art at Totnes High School for two years before she moved to St Ives in 1957. Kate was a founder member of the Penwith Society of Arts – the more abstract breakaway group of St Ives artists. She painted still lifes and abstract works from her homes in Cumbria and Cornwall. In the 1960s and 1970s, she painted alongside her mother, Winifred and the two travelled together frequently, visiting Greece, North Africa and the Hebrides. Kate exhibited at Waddington Galleries and the Marjorie Parr Gallery among others.

Great-granddaughter of Mabel Pryde Nicholson, RAFAELE

APPLEBY (b. 1961) paints in her studio on Hadrian’s Wall with views of the Cumbrian fells to the south, and her garden to the north. Rafaele’s paintings and pastel drawings are focused on colour and light and are often inspired by the nature that surrounds her.

OPHELIA APPLEBY (b. 1996) is a figurative painter based in Cumbria. Her explorative work primarily concerns the hyperscrutiny of fleeting facial nuances, non-verbal communication, and the perception of dignity. She obtained a degree in music from the Royal Northern College of Music and has exhibited and performed at the Grange Gallery, former home of Mabel Pryde Nicholson.

23.

E.Q. NICHOLSON (1908-1992)

Black Goose 1938

Block cut, printed on cloth

32.75 x 33 inches / 83.2 x 83.2 cms

Dartington Hall Trust Collection

CRANE

Back cover: 24.

Rachel NICHOLSON (b. 1934)

Brown Composition 1986/94

Acrylic on board

16.5 x 12 inches / 42 x 30.5 cms