Kate Nicholson

Acquired by the late owners by 1986

London, David Messum, Kate Nicholson, 1996

Kate Nicholson made regular trips to St Ives to stay with her father, Ben Nicholson and his wife Barbara Hepworth, although living at the other end of the country in Cumberland with her mother, Winifred Nicholson. Ben supported Kate Nicholson in her painting, instructing her how to prepare canvasses and boards, he gave her paints and other materials, introduced her to his friends and collectors, and encouraged her to exhibit two of her pictures for the first time at the Penwith Society in the spring of 1950. Crucially Ben and Kate drew the Cornish landscape side by side, Kate writing to her mother, ‘I am having a lovely time here. Ben and I bicycled over to Zennor the day before yesterday. We went out to Zennor head and looked down on the black rocks. They were marvellous, but a bit too stupendous to paint. We watched a French crabber with the most lovely colours tawny, redy, brown sails. We ate our sandwiches on the top of a rock, did some sketches and then went back to Zennor for tea. After that it started to rain solidly for nearly all the rest of the evening. It was 5 miles back to Carbis Bay, so Ben thought we should leave the bikes and go back by bus’ (quoted in Jovan Nicholson, Kate Nicholson, Philip Wilson Publishers, London, 2019, p. 15).

Jovan Nicholson