MABEL PRYDE NICHOLSON

Born in Edinburgh, Mabel Pryde Nicholson (1871-1918) was a portraitist of great skill and tenderness, part of glittering bohemian circles in Edwardian Britain and Belle Époque France, and with her husband, the painter William Nicholson (1872-1949), at the head of one of the great dynasties in twentieth-century British art.

Few artists win lasting renown without salting away a significantly-sized body of work and Mabel Pryde Nicholson, who waited until her four children were grown to paint in earnest and died suddenly at 47, wasn’t granted that chance.

Even so, her finest pictures – the figures in Commedia dell’Arte costume; the cryptic, beautifully muted portrait-interiors – all painted in the early 1900s, suggest an artist of such tensile strength that you have to wonder what she might have become.

Her Life

Learn more

A woman holding a young girl outdoors among foliage; the woman is smiling and the girl has a serious expression.

Mabel Pryde Nicholson with her eldest son, the abstract artist Ben Nicholson, circa 1896 (Bushey Museum; on loan from the collection of Nicholas Gibbs)

Selected Artworks

A dark portrait of a woman with short hair, looking over her shoulder with a serious expression, against a black background.

A realistic painting of a woman in traditional clothing seated in a room with yellow walls, a woman in the background standing and looking toward the viewer, and an array of framed pictures on the wall.

A classical painting depicting a woman with curly hair, wearing a white garment, possibly reading or writing, with dark background and painted in a traditional style.

Explore

Rottingdean Heritage is a charity, originally created to look after the village Windmill, a prominent feature of the landscape near Brighton. The charity now looks after the Gallery and Museum in The Grange, where Mabel and William lived with their family between 1909 and 1914.

A black-and-white photograph of a young boy standing inside a room, looking at the camera. The room has various objects including a dog, peeking through a door hanging on the wall, and some furniture. There is a person on the left side of the image looking at the boy, and a young girl sitting on the floor in the background. Various patterned items and clothing are also visible.

The Lost Paintings

The "List of photographs of MN [Mabel Nicholson's] paintings" compiled by Ben Nicholson in 1918 (Tate archive) and the catalogue to the memorial exhibition of her work held at the Goupil Gallery in 1920 (V&A archive) suggests that at least fifteen of Mabel’s paintings remain unaccounted for.

Learn More