Beggarstaff brothers biography of william nicholson

His best work has a subtlety, virtuosity and individual voice that places it with the finest of its period. There he met fellow student Mabel Pryde, who was to become his first wife. She introduced him to her brother, the artist James Pryde. In Pryde and Nicholson, as J. Beggarstaff, began to collaborate on a series of posters which were revolutionary in style with their boldness of outline, simplicity of treatment and striking silhouettes, and their flat, pure colours.

Sir William Newzam Prior Nicholson was a British painter of still-life, landscape and portraits.

The Beggarstaff partnership was short-lived but the originality of their posters was widely recognised. In the following years Nicholson evolved out of the posters a personal style which he began to exploit through the medium of the woodcut. In this venture he had the good fortune to be encouraged by Whistler who recommended him to the publisher William Heinemann.

Henley, in and The Square Book of Animals in These were collected in the two series of Twelve Portraits and , the first of which was awarded a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. The Heinemann windmill colophon still used today was designed by Nicholson at this time.

Two leading figures in the development of Modern British art, William Nicholson () and his brother-in-law James Pryde (), were at the.

After the turn of the century Nicholson concentrated on painting, and portrait commissions were his main means of support. He was best known in his lifetime as a portrait painter. Among his finest portraits are those of Max Beerbohm c. Modest in scale, they have a tonal mastery, economy of means, sensitivity of touch and acuteness of perception which is very distinctive.

Nicholson had a special feeling for the English downlands, whether the Sussex downs around Rottingdean where he moved in or, later, the Wiltshire downs. Between the wars he also painted in France and Spain.