Nancy Nicholson
{{Short description|English painter and fabric designer (1899–1977)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2022}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Nancy Nicholson
| image = Mabel Pryde - Harlequin with Chair NGS NGS GMA 4835-001.jpg
| imagesize =
| caption = Mabel Pryde - Harlequin with Chair NGS NGS GMA
| birth_name = Annie Mary Pryde Nicholson
| birth_date = {{birth year|1899}}
| birth_place = Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England{{Cite web|url=https://www.findmypast.co.uk/search/results?datasetname=england+%26+wales+births+1837-2006&firstname=annie+mary+p&lastname=nicholson&eventyear=1899&eventyear_offset=0|title=Search Results for England & Wales Births 1837–2006|website=www.findmypast.co.uk}}
| death_date = {{death year and age|1977|1899}}
| death_place = Salisbury, Wiltshire, England{{Cite web|url=https://www.findmypast.co.uk/search/results?datasetname=england+%26+wales+deaths+1837-2007&firstname=annie+mary+p&lastname=nicholson&eventyear=1977&eventyear_offset=0&yearofbirth=1899&yearofbirth_offset=1|title=Search Results for England & Wales Deaths 1837–2007|website=www.findmypast.co.uk}}
| nationality =
| field = Fabric design
| training =
| awards =
| spouse = {{marriage|Robert Graves|1918|1949|end=divorced}}
| children = 4
| father = William Nicholson
| mother = Mabel Pryde
| relatives = {{plainlist|
- Ben Nicholson (brother)
- Christopher Nicholson (brother)
- Kate Nicholson (niece)
- Simon Nicholson (nephew)
}}
}}
Annie "Nancy" Mary Pryde Nicholson (1899–1977) was an English painter and fabric designer.
Early life
Born Annie Mary Pryde Nicholson, she was the only daughter of the artists Sir William Nicholson and Mabel Pryde. She had three brothers, artist Ben, architect Christopher and Anthony, who was killed in action in 1918 in the First World War.{{Cite web |url=http://thelightbox.org/blog/ |title=The Lightbox Blog – Latest Entries |access-date=22 May 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110509160621/http://thelightbox.org/blog/ |archive-date=9 May 2011 |url-status=dead }}
Robert Graves
Nancy married the poet Robert Graves in 1918. The following year, Graves started as a student in Oxford University. The couple lived in a cottage on Boars Hill in Oxford, which they rented from the author John Masefield. In 1920, in partnership with a neighbour, The Hon. Mrs Michael Howard, Nancy set up a small grocer's shop, next door to the Masefields' house. Alarmed by the tourists it attracted, Mrs Masefield opposed its takeover by an Oxford firm, and the project collapsed after six months, leaving heavy debts settled only with the help of friends and family. In disgust, Graves and Nancy moved to the village of Islip, the other side of Oxford.
A lifelong feminist, Nancy used to cycle to Oxfordshire villages and set up a stall to explain to women how to use contraception, when it was still illegal. Her open-mindedness led her to accept a triangular relationship, and from early 1926 Laura Riding lived with her and Graves in LondonDeborah Barker, In Extremis: The Life of Laura Riding (1993), p. 95. The marriage eventually broke down, as Graves increasingly favoured Riding, leaving Nancy to bring up the four children of the marriage alone,{{Cite web|url=http://www.booksfactory.com/writers/graves.htm|title=Robert Graves|website=booksfactory.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120210150116/http://www.booksfactory.com/writers/graves.htm |archive-date=10 February 2012 |url-status=usurped}} in a succession of locations, including Cumberland and a further spell on Boars Hill. Nancy and Graves legally divorced in 1949.
Publishing and textile design
After a period in the early 1930s living with Geoffrey Taylor{{Cite web|url=http://www.ricorso.net/rx/az-data/index.htm|title=Ricorso: Digital materials for the study and appreciation of Anglo-Irish Literature|website=www.ricorso.net}} on a houseboat moored in Hammersmith, Nancy set up the Poulk Press,Lesley Jackson, 20th Century Pattern Design: Textile & Wallpaper Pioneers (2002), p. 70. in which she collaborated for a time with him. They lived near Sutton Veny, Wiltshire, in a timber house designed by Nancy and built with family labour.Terence Brown, Ireland's Literature: Selected Essays (1988), p. 144. Her relationship with Taylor lasted five years.Barker, p. 213. She worked at this period with her brother Ben and his wife Barbara Hepworth on textiles.
Undeterred by the failure of the Boars Hill shop, in the 1940s she ran a business in Motcomb Street, London. Her designs influenced her sister-in-law EQ Nicholson.The Nicholsons: A Story of Four People and their Designs, p. 56. Her work was exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1976.
Notes
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{{Robert Graves|state=collapsed}}
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