A representational artist, he was interested in the nature of painting and was happiest doing landscapes and still lifes, in which he explored the effects of light and shadow with supreme virtuosity.
Brought up in Newark, in Nottinghamshire (his father ran the family ironworks), Nicholson studied at Hubert von Herkomer’s art school in Bushey from 1888 until 1891, when he briefly attended the Académie Julian in Paris. His paintings of the early 1890s have echoes of Clausen’s rustic plein-air studies and show his admiration for Whistler and the Glasgow Boys.
In 1893, he eloped with fellow art student Mabel Pryde; their son Ben—who would go on to become a more famous painter than his father—was born in 1894. That year, Nicholson and his brother-in-law, James Pryde, who came to live with them at Denham, founded the printing partnership J. & W. Beggarstaff, named after a ‘hearty old English name’ they’d spied on a sack of fodder. Turning to advertising as more lucrative than painting, Beggarstaffs used collage and stencil to produce striking, simplified images with bold lettering that revolutionised poster design, notable examples being for productions of Hamlet (1894) and Don Quixote (1895). Toulouse- Lautrec’s lithographic posters and the graphic work of Les Nabis, especially Bonnard and Vuillard, were clearly influential, as were images associated with English folk art and crafts, which recur in Nicholson’s earlier works.
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds