
Winifred Nicholson: Cumbrian Rag Rugs
A rare and heart-warming exhibition has opened at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA). Winifred Nicholson: Cumbrian Rag Rugs displays 28 rag rugs from private collections and regional museums, mostly made by farmers’ wives between the 1920s and the 1970s. These are placed alongside Winifred and Ben Nicholson’s portraits and landscape paintings, which speak of the land, the home and the friendships that developed between them. Co-curated with art historian Jovan Nicholson, Winifred’s grandson, MIMA presents an aspect of rural life that has not been explored until now.
“I grew up with these,” Jovan tells us, pointing to a vitrine containing a hooked rug with a smiling sun and beaming moon. “I remember this in front of the fireplace in our living room. It is one of the best rugs, designed by Winifred and made by Mary Bewick.”
This show honours both designer and maker, a feat made possible by Jovan’s research and childhood memories and by the meticulous list his grandmother Winifred kept in the ’60s and ’70s when she commissioned makers to hook rugs of her designs and theirs in an attempt to revive a tradition degraded by commercial prints on hessian sold in kit form.
Sheep, 1960s. Designed and made by Mary Bewick. Private Collection
The rugs have a pleasing commonality: they share the same subject matter, usually concentrated on animals, and the same technique, that is, hooked. Loops of yarn or rag are pulled through a backing material with a hooking needle and left uncut to produce a bobbled surface, often pressed flat by the weight of feet and the passage of time. “They’re physical things which you use,” Jovan says. “You interact with them every day.”
Born out of a make-do-and-mend necessity, the rag rug has long been associated with poverty. In the 19th century, they were used by those who couldn’t afford machine-made floor coverings and who found that scraps of old clothes and offcuts from textile factories could be made into mats using potato sacks as a support. These vivid, vital creations were never featured on the pages of needlework magazines, and institutions largely ignored the craft.
“As far as I can see, there’s almost none in the British Museum, most books on folk art don’t mention rag rugs, and in the Tate exhibition about folk art (British Folk Art, Tate Britain, 2014) there weren’t any,” Jovan laments.
Another reason is that so few survive. Once past their best, the rug was discarded and replaced.
Cumbrian Landscape, 1968. Designed by Jovan Nicholson and made by Florence Williams. Private Collection
“There was a hierarchy in the house,” Jovan says. “They’d be put in front of the hearth, and then they’d be moved around and eventually end up outside as something to put over the potatoes.”
Flooding and a chip pan fire also destroyed several rugs destined for the exhibition but no longer exist.
The story of Winifred and Ben Nicholson’s involvement in Cumbria begins in 1924, when they moved to Bankshead, an old farmhouse on the Roman wall in Cumberland, attracting a crowd of visitors, including painters Paul Nash, Ivon Hitchens, and Christopher Wood. The couple painted the hills, fields, farms, and flowers they saw around them, and two of their three children were born in the house. Although the marriage did not last – Ben went on to marry Barbara Hepworth, and Winifred moved to Paris – Bankshead remained her holiday home until she settled in 1960.
Galloway Bull, 1960s. Designed and made by Mary Bewick. Private Collection
The exhibition begins with Winifred's friendship with her Cumbrian neighbours, the Warwicks. The painter first became aware of the rug craft being practised on her doorstep through Margaret Warwick.
In Winifred’s tender, intimate portrait, The Warwick Family c.1925-26, Margaret and Tom Warwick sit at the kitchen table with their daughter Janet and their grandson Norman, a baby on Margaret’s knee. It is a gentle picture with the figures dissolving into the quiet domestic setting, but the relationship is important. Janet nannied the Nicholsons’ children, and she and her sister, Mary Bewick – both skilled rugmakers – later made rugs for Winifred.
Two Cats by a Fire, c.1923. Designed and made by Margaret Warwick. Tullie House and Art Gallery Trust, Carlisle
This section presents some early works by Margaret from the 1920s. Two Cats by a Fire (1923) depicts a feline pair on either side of a grate in which a tea kettle bubbles, surrounded by pink and yellow florets that look like decorative puffs of coloured steam. The cats stare out, recalling the Staffordshire pottery “Wally” dogs often found on mantlepieces and by fireplaces at the time.
Sheep Dog, attributed to Margaret, shows the solid silhouette of a dog with delicate lines and patches of colour to describe paws, back, eyes and mouth, long tail curled and legs in motion across a field of subtly variegated oatmeal hues, enlivened by closely packed stitching. Contrasting with this simplicity is a riotous border of choppy strata of pinks, ochres, blues, greens and browns, suggesting rocky outcrops and fissured surfaces of frozen muddy water.
The later hooky rugs, dating from the 1960s and 70s, were commissioned by Winifred and sold in shops like Primavera in Cambridge (established in 1959 and still trading). They feature similar animal motifs, mostly belonging to the farmyard. However, Winifred introduced more exotic types, such as a lion, dancing panther cub, peacock, and black swan. Janet Heap’s Tiger is the standout in this category.
Tiger, 1960s. Designed and made by Janet Heap. Private Collection
“I don’t know where the tiger comes from,” Jovan smiles, “with its wonderful tail going over the border.”
The tiger’s stripes ripple across its creeping form, and the waves of midnight blue in the background run counter to the animal’s stiff whiskers and cross expression as it finds itself clenched in the grip of a grid-like border.
Mary Bewick’s farmyard rugs, Galloway Bull, Highland Cattle, and Sheep, resemble the livestock portraiture of the late 18th century when prosperous farmers commissioned artists to record their prize beasts for posterity. Each rug has a monumental animal viewed from the side. Bewick designed and hooked eight rugs for Winifred in the 1960s, and her subjects are keenly observed.
“One of the things about farmers is that they go out and check their stock all the time, so they’re using their eyes, seeing if they’re healthy, seeing which ones they’re going to breed, so they’re engaged in something very visual, and I think that comes through so strongly,” Jovan says.
He describes how common it was for a whole family to be involved in different tasks to create a rag rug: the farmer might make the tools and the frame, and the children would cut the fabrics into strips.
Tractor and Hay Cart, 1967. Designed by Jovan Nicholson and made by Mrs Hall. Private Collection
Among the delights of this exhibition are the mix of artist designs, maker designs and children’s designs, all realised by accomplished rug-crafters. Winifred’s great-nieces and grandchildren – including Jovan – drew in marker pen on hessian, their drawings then made up by Florence Williams, who hooked nine works on display. Winifred paid each child £1 for their design. Mrs Hall’s realisation of Jovan’s Tractor and Haycart is pleasingly abstract, with one block of yellow and one patchworked four-wheeled block, funnelled and puffing smoke.
Four Storks is a later rug and rather different from the rest. Designed by Li Yuan-chia and hooked by a group of local women around 1983, it is a testimony to Winifred’s encouragement of a younger generation of artists.
As our tour at MIMA ends, Jovan adds, “I always go away with a smile on my face... I feel very fortunate to show these here.” And we are fortunate indeed to discover them.
Words by Deborah Nash
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Winifred Nicholson: Cumbrian Rag Rugs, is on show from 25 October 2024 – 23 March 2025, at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, UK
For further information, please visit:
https://mima.art/exhibition/winifred-nicholson-cumbrian-rag-rugs/