1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nicholson, William

NICHOLSON, WILLIAM (1872-), English painter and engraver, was born at Newark Feb. 5 1872, and was educated at the Magnus school, Newark. He studied at the Académie Julien, Paris, and about 1894 began experimenting in wood engraving, producing some admirable work in that medium, characterized by the use of bold masses of black and white or of sombre greys and browns, relieved by touches of bright colour. In this manner he illustrated An Alphabet (1898); An Almanac of Twelve Sports (with Rudyard Kipling; 1898); London Types (with W. E. Henley; 1898); Characters of Romance (1900); A Square Book of Animals (with A. Waugh; 1900), and engraved some well-known portraits, including that of Queen Victoria. He also collaborated with James Pryde under the name of “The Beggarstaff Brothers” in designing some remarkable posters. To the set of lithographs entitled “Britain's Aims and Ideals,” published during the World War, he contributed “The End of War.” As a painter he is best known for his interiors and still-life pictures, such as “The Hundred Jugs” (1916), “Souvenirs de Babette,” “Miss Simpson's Boots” and “The Striped Shawl”; but his work also includes landscapes for example “The Hill above Harlech” — generally in a low key, and many portraits, including those of W. E. Henley, the painter's mother, Sir W. C. Pakenham (for the Imperial War Museum); Ursula Lutyens, and “The Girl with the Tattered Glove.” He is represented in the Luxembourg, Paris; the Tate Gallery; the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; the Glasgow Gallery; and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.