Nancy Nicholson
Nancy Nicholson (1899-1977) was a British painter and fabric designer.
She was sister to Ben Nicholson and daughter of the artist Sir William Nicholson.
Nancy married the poet Robert Graves in 1918; at that time they lived outside Oxford, in the village of Islip. From early 1926 Laura Riding lived with them in London, as a triangular relationship[1]. The marriage eventually broke down, as Graves took up with Riding. Nancy brought up the four children[2] of the marriage, in Cumberland and elsewhere. They were divorced in 1949.
Nancy Nicholson set up in 1930 the Poulk Press[3], where she collaborated for a time with Geoffrey Phibbs[4]. They lived in Sutton Veny, Wiltshire[5], a relationship lasting five years[6]. She worked at this period with Ben and Barbara Hepworth on textiles.
In the 1940s she ran a business in Motcomb Street, London. Her designs influenced her sister-in-law EQ Nicholson.[7].
Notes
- ^ Deborah Barker, In Extremis: The Life of Laura Riding (1993), p. 95.
- ^ http://www.booksfactory.com/writers/graves.htm
- ^ Lesley Jackson, 20th Century Pattern Design: Textile & Wallpaper Pioneers (2002), p. 70.
- ^ Geoffrey Taylor
- ^ Terence Brown, Ireland's Literature: Selected Essays (1988), p. 144.
- ^ Barker, p. 213.
- ^ The Nicholsons: A Story of Four People and their Designs, p. 56.