Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Copyright Undetermined
Accession Number:
B1993.30.25
Gallery Label:
William Nicholson gained early fame as a graphic designer in the 1890s, producing posters in collaboration with the artist James Pryde. In the early twentieth century he became an equally celebrated still-life painter, with a particular talent for capturing the reflection of light off different surfaces. Nicholson’s passion for still life was a great influence on his eldest son, Ben, whose work is shown nearby. “I owe a lot to my father,” Ben claimed in 1963, “especially his poetic ideal and his still-life theme. That didn't come from Cubism as some people think, but from my father—not only from what he did as a painter, but from the beautiful striped and spotted jugs and mugs and goblets and octagonal and hexagonal glass objects which he collected.” Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016