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Winifred Nicholson | |
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 Nicholson in 1969, photographed by Pamela Chandler | |
| Born | Rosa Winifred Roberts (1893-12-21)21 December 1893 Oxford, England |
| Died | 5 March 1981(1981-03-05) (aged 87) Carlisle, Cumbria, England |
| Education | Byam Shaw School of Art |
| Known for | Still-life,landscape |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3, includingKate Nicholson |
| Website | winifrednicholson |
Rosa Winifred Nicholson[a] (néeRoberts; 21 December 1893 – 5 March 1981) was a British painter. She was married to the painterBen Nicholson, and was thus the daughter-in-law of the painterWilliam Nicholson and his wife, the painterMabel Pryde. She was the mother of the painterKate Nicholson.
Nicholson was born Rosa Winifred Roberts inOxford on 21 December 1893.[1][2][3] She was the eldest of the three children of theLiberal Party politicianCharles Henry Roberts and Lady Cecilia Maude Howard, daughter of the politicianGeorge Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle, and of the activistRosalind Howard.[1] Nicholson started painting as a teenager with her grandfather George Howard, who was a capable amateur painter and a friend of thePre-RaphaelitesWilliam Morris andEdward Burne-Jones, and of the Italian landscape painterNino Costa, founder of theEtruscan School.[1] Nicholson attended theByam Shaw School of Art in London from about 1910[1] or 1912[4] until the outbreak of theFirst World War in 1914, and again from 1918 to 1919.[1]
In 1919, Nicholson travelled with her father, who had beenUnder-Secretary of State for India, toBurma (now Myanmar),Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and India.[2]
On 4 November 1920, she married the artistBen Nicholson, the son of the painterSir William Newzam Prior Nicholson and his wife, the painterMabel Pryde.[1][5] The couple bought a villa in Switzerland, the Villa Capriccio near the village ofCastagnola on the north shore ofLake Lugano inTicino. They spent the winters in Switzerland and the summers in Britain, paintingstill-lifes andlandscapes.[4] In 1924, Winifred bought Bankshead, a farmhouse built on anancient Roman castle forming part ofHadrian's Wall, atBanks, not far from the town ofBrampton inCumberland,[1] and close to the family seat,Naworth Castle.[4]
In 1924, Nicholson, who believed that she wasunable to conceive, joined theChristian Science movement, which was in vogue in Britain at that time.[6]: 16 She and Ben eventually had three children: Jake was born in 1927,[6]: 17 Kate in July 1929, and Andrew in 1931.[6]: 19 By the time of Kate's birth, there were tensions in the marriage, and these were exacerbated by the suicide of their close friend, the painterKit Wood, in August 1930. In 1931, Ben metBarbara Hepworth – whom he later married – and he and Winifred separated.[5][3] In 1932, Winifred moved with her three children to Paris, and from then until 1936 Ben often visited them there, sometimes with Hepworth; the marriage ended in divorce in 1938, and Ben married Hepworth in November of the same year.[5] In Paris she formed friendships with a number ofmodernist andabstract artists, among themHans Arp,Constantin Brancusi,César Domela,Jean Hélion andPiet Mondrian.[2]
She died inCumbria on 5 March 1981.[1]
Nicholson painted mostly still-lifes and landscapes. While in Paris in the 1930s she made someabstract works.[2]
Significant exhibitions of her works have taken place at theTate Gallery (1987), at theTullie House Museum and Art Gallery in Carlisle, Cumbria, atKettle's Yard in Cambridge and at theDean Gallery in Edinburgh.[citation needed] Her auction record of £200,000 was set at Sotheby's auction house in London in November 2016 for her 1928 oil and coloured pencil on panelSt Ives' Harbour, fromDavid Bowie's collection – the pop star had bought the work at Christie's in 1994.[7]
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