Nicholson, William (1872-1949), artist

English painter and printmaker. He attended Hubert von Herkomer’s school at Bushey (1888–9), but he was dismissed for ‘Whistlerian impudence’. He went to Paris in 1899 and enrolled for several months at the Académie Julian. As the Beggarstaff Brothers he and his brother-in-law James Pryde designed a series of striking posters (1893–9), which recall those of Toulouse-Lautrec. In 1896 Whistler recommended Nicholson to the London publisher William Heinemann, who commissioned An Alphabet, a series of woodcut illustrations. It appeared together with An Almanac of Twelve Sports and London Types in 1898. From 1900 Nicholson worked mainly in oils. At first his debt to Whistler was paramount, evident in Max (1900; London, N.P.G.), although his portrait of the actress Marie Tempest (1903; London, N.P.G.) invites comparison with the work of John Singer Sargent. By contrast Girl with the Tattered Glove (1909; Cambridge, Fitzwilliam) is uncompromising in its realism.

In 1917 Nicholson established his studio at a fashionable address in London’s St James’s. During the 1920s and 1930s he sustained a successful portrait practice but also indulged his interest in still-life and landscape. His later work reflected the influence of younger artists, including his son Ben Nicholson. Sir Winston Churchill was among his pupils (1934–6). Nicholson served as a trustee of the Tate Gallery (1934–6), and he was knighted in 1936.

Oxford Art Online https://doi.org/10.1093/oao/9781884446054.013.90000370742