Relative Ties: The Women Artists of the Nicholson Family

This spring, The Women’s Art Collection at Murray Edwards College invites us into a world where ribbons curl, unicorns prance across linen, and domestic interiors pulse with wit and resolve. Relative Ties: Mabel Nicholson, Nancy Nicholson, EQ Nicholson and Louisa Creed (6 March–6 September 2026) unfolds as a richly layered study of artistic inheritance, tracing how ideas, motifs and convictions pass along matrilineal lines—stitched into fabric, pressed into lino blocks, and painted into memory. Spanning over a century, the exhibition gathers paintings, wallpaper, textiles, rugs and works on paper (many never before publicly displayed) to reveal a lineage of women who made creativity both a vocation and a way of life.

Nancy as the Harlequin with a Windsor Chair, Mabel Nicholson (1871–1918). Image: National Galleries of Scotland

The story begins with Mabel Pryde Nicholson, whose atmospheric domestic scenes capture her children in tender, theatrical moments. Her portrait of her daughter Nancy dressed as a harlequin opens the exhibition, setting the tone for a family deeply entwined with the London theatre world, where costume and cloth shimmer with possibility. That daughter, Nancy Nicholson, emerges as a formidable presence. In 1929 she founded Poulk Press, producing hand-printed textiles alive with unicorns, ducks and the flora and fauna that surrounded her homes in Oxfordshire and Wiltshire.

Nancy Nicholson, Penny Fiddle. © Estate of EQ Nicholson

Fiercely independent (she refused to adopt her husband Robert Graves’s surname) Nancy resisted the mass production of her designs, believing the integrity of the handmade must be preserved. On display are her original lino blocks, stencils and tools, alongside bespoke letterheads created for her brother Ben Nicholson and for Barbara Hepworth. Particularly poignant is Auntie’s Skirts, The End (1918), a rare painting that signals how seldom her fine art was exhibited during her lifetime...

(...)

Want to read more of this article?
We are proud to be a subscriber-funded publication with members in 185 countries. We know our readership is passionate about textiles, so we invite you to help us preserve and promote the stories, memories, and histories that fabric holds. Your support allows us to publish our magazine, and also ‘what's on’ information, and subscription interviews, reviews, and long-read articles in our online blog. 

ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? CLICK HERE TO ACCESS CONTENT

Or, to continue reading….


Magazine subscribers automatically get free access to all our online content. We send the access code by email with the publication of each issue. You will also find it on the envelope containing your magazine. Please note the access code changes every issue.

-

Image Credits:

Lead: Nancy Nicholson, Begonia, 1950. Cushion cover hand printed with stencils and perforated zinc © Estate of Nancy Nicholson.

All further images as credited in photo captions.