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Nancy Nicholson

Art genre: Various.
Art media: Textile design, interior design, illustrations.

Life: Born in 1899, Nancy Nicholson was the sister of artist Ben Nicholson. In 1916 she met the poet Robert Graves whom she married in 1918. By then she had already started to work as an illustrator - she drew a cover for Vogue magazine in 1917. She and her husband moved to Boar's Hill near Oxford where Nancy started a village grocer's shop. She had three children. A keen feminist, she held the first official car-licence in Wales, gave advice to local women on contraception and fought for equal pay for women and men. In 1927 Nancy and Graves went to Egypt where Graves had been offered a teaching post. The following year they moved to London where they lived on a barge until their marriage broke up in 1928. The following year Nancy set up Poulk Prints in Wiltshire where she made hand printed fabrics to her own designs. She also produced illustrations and designed interiors. In 1946 she opened a shop in London to display her fabrics. In the 1960s she moved back to Wiltshire and continued to work until shortly before her death in 1977.

Work: Nancy Nicholson's style is distinctive and she adhered to it throughout her life. She used clear, clean colours and motifs such as dots and commas. Her main medium was print. On paper she designed letterheads, illustrations, cards and book-jackets. On cloth she designed and hand printed fabrics for domestic use - cushions, curtains and bedspreads. Perhaps one of her most familiar motifs is the duck design that she adapted for cards, fingerplates and cushions.  In 1976, Nancy's work was displayed in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Find out more:
www.en.wikipedia.org

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