Biography

Painter, draughtsman, printmaker and artist in low relief, of abstract persuasion but often using still life and landscape motifs. He was born in Denham, Buckinghamshire, son of the painter William Nicholson; his first wife was the painter Winifred Nicholson, his second the sculptor Barbara Hepworth. Studied at Slade School of Fine Art, 1910-11, then travelled in Europe 1911-14; further travels, partly because of his health, took him to Madeira, America, Italy and France. His first one-man show was at Adelphi Gallery, 1922. First visit to Cornwall with Christopher Wood, where they discovered the painter Alfred Wallis, 1928. This was a key influence on his work, as were meetings in Paris with Arp, Brancusi, Picasso, Miró and Mondrian in the early 1930s. In 1933 he joined Abstraction-Création and made his first reliefs. Co-editor of Circle in 1937.

From 1939-58 lived in St Ives, Cornwall, being a founder-member of Penwith Society of Arts. In the 1950s began to consolidate his international reputation, exhibiting widely abroad, winning a number of prizes and having a series of retrospective exhibitions. Order of Merit, 1968. Lived in Switzerland for many years from 1958, but returned to England in the early 1970s, dying in London.

Nicholson's pictures and reliefs are distinguished by their deceptive simplicity and meticulous employment of colour and shape. Tate Gallery, which holds his work, gave Nicholson a major retrospective in 1993-4.