Rachel Nicholson creates a backwater of calm in the hurly-burly of the twenty-first century. Her work memorialises the enduring artists legacy of an Edwardian grandfather, modernist parents, and a childhood in St Ives, a town to which she has frequently returned. Her roots are permanently present. Her shadowless paintings are cut off from the anxieties of present day conflicts and celebrate the safe haven of tea time by the sea.
(b. 1934)
Rachel Nicholson
Rachel Nicholson was born in 1934, one of triplets, to the artists Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth. The family moved from Hampstead to St Ives, Cornwall in 1939. Rachel had no formal training and started painting in her early 40s after her youngest child started school. She married the Alzheimer’s researcher Dr. Michael Kidd; and has three children.
Rachel began her career with still life compositions, which developed over the years into a range of landscape images from Cumbria, Derbyshire and the West Country where she spent most of her childhood. The arrangement of objects, whether within her compositions or outside them, particularly in her home, is equally important. Rachel inherited her love of still-life objects from her father Ben Nicholson, and he from his father William Nicholson.
'My Paintings are a way of trying to bring a sense of peace, and the hope that this will be extended to the viewer'
Selected Solo Exhibitions Include:
2016 | Rachel Nicholson, Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall
2014 | Retrospective, Caroline Wiseman at the London Art Fair, Bussiness Design Centre, Islington, London
2013 | Rachel Nicholson, Stoneman Gallery, Cornwall UK
2006 | Caroline Wiseman Modern Art
2001 | Lynne Strover Gallery, Cambridgeshire
2000 | Montpelier Sandelson, London
1997 | Montpelier Sandelson, London
1994 | Montpelier Studio, London
1991 | Montpelier Studio, London
1990 | Takanawa Gallery, Tokyo
1988 | Montpelier Studio, London
1985 | Montpelier Studio, London
1982 | Montpelier Studio, London
1980 | Rachel Nicholson Dartington Years 1945 - 1952, Dartington Gallery
1980 | First London Solo, Montpelier Studio
1979 | First Solo Show at Field Gallery, Farnsfield Nottinghamshire