Sir William Nicholson

Acquired directly from the Artist by Sir Winston Churchill, and thence by descent to his daughter Mary

London, Leicester Galleries, Recent Paintings by William Nicholson, May - June 1934, cat. no.106;
London, National Gallery, Exhibition of Paintings by Sir William Nicholson and Jack B. Yeats, 1st January - 15th March 1942, cat. no.47.

Lillian Browse, William Nicholson, Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1956, cat. no.501, p.111;
Patricia Reed, William Nicholson, Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Modern Art Press/Yale University Press, London, 2011, cat. no.722, illustrated p.556.

Not examined out of frame. The work is on its original C. Roberson & Co. Ltd. canvas. The canvas undulates slightly and there are three small scratches in the paint surface at the upper right of the composition. Some light surface dirt is present across the composition and a small area of surface matter is visible at the lower edge. and over all the artwork appears to be in good condition. Ultraviolet light reveals no obvious sign of florescence or retouching. The work is presented in fluted and painted wooded frame. Please contact the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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Having first met Winston and Clementine in the summer of 1933, William Nicholson was to become a popular feature in Chartwell life in the 1930s, where he was as much admired for his talents with a boomerang as with a paintbrush. Yet beyond his role as a close family friend, Nicholson was to have an important influence over Winston’s artistic development and Churchill later recalled to the then Director of the Tate, Sir John Rothenstein ‘I think the person who taught me most about painting was William Nicholson’ (quoted in Mary Soames, Winston Churchill, His Life as a Painter, Collins, London, 1990, p.84).

By the time of Nicholson’s introduction to the family he was already a successful and established artist, and his society portraits were as sought after as his landscapes and still life compositions. In 1936, two years after the present work was painted, Nicholson was to receive a knighthood, from which point onwards the family referred to him affectionately as ‘S’ William, or as Winston preferred Cher Maître. Nicholson was to have a lasting impact over the development of Churchill’s techniques, and in particular the introduction of a softer, brighter palette. The new, pared-back palette was popularly received by his wife Clementine, who wrote in August 1934 to her husband 'I love to think of you painting sparkling sun-lit scenes – Are you keeping them cool & pale à la Nicholson?' (Soames, ibid, p.86).

The pair often painted together at Chartwell, and in 1935 both produced scenes of the swimming pool there (which now both hang together in the Studio at Chartwell). The present work was also most probably executed whilst Nicholson was staying with the family, and is painted on a canvas provided by Churchill. Here the paint is thinly applied, with a soft, muted palette that creates an almost luminous effect, aided further by the rich and delicate surface textures of the fish’s body. Nicholson was famed for his still life compositions and Churchill drew heavily from his style in a number of beautiful still lifes executed during the 1930s, including Silver Life (1937, lot 256), which balance pared-back colours with an artful placement of silver, crockery, bottles, and a full host of Nicholson-like props. The present work was one of a number of works by Nicholson within the family’s collection, including several depicting the black swans at Chartwell, which had been a gift from the Australian Commonwealth.