EQ Nicholson (4 November 1908 – 7 September 1992) was an English painter and textile designer.

Early life

Elsie Queen Myers was born in London on 4 November 1908, the daughter of the novelist

Leo Myers Leopold Hamilton Myers (6 September 1881 – 7 April 1944) was a British novelist. Life left, with his mother Myers was born in Leckhampton House, Cambridge into a cultured family; his father was the writer Frederic William Henry Myers (1843- ...

and his American-born wife Elsie Mellen Palmer; her sister Eveleen was born in 1910. Her paternal grandparents were the writer

Frederic W. H. Myers Frederic William Henry Myers (6 February 1843 – 17 January 1901) was a British poet, classicist, philology, philologist, and a founder of the Society for Psychical Research. Myers' work on Parapsychology, psychical research and his ideas ...

and the photographer Eveleen Tennant; her maternal grandfather was General

William Jackson Palmer William Jackson Palmer (September 18, 1836 – March 13, 1909) was an American civil engineer, veteran of the Civil War, industrialist, and philanthropist. During the American Civil War, he was promoted to brevet brigadier general and received ...

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacen ...

, from whose wife Mary "Queen" Palmer, ''née'' Mellen, she received her second name. Her father frequented writers and artists including members of the

Bloomsbury Group The Bloomsbury Group—or Bloomsbury Set—was a group of associated English writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the first half of the 20th century, including Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster and Lytton Strac ...

, the sculptor

Frank Dobson Frank Gordon Dobson (15 March 1940 – 11 November 2019) was a British Labour Party politician. As Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn and St. Pancras from 1979 to 2015, he served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Health from 1997 ...

and the painter

Cedric Morris Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris, 9th Baronet (11 December 1889 – 8 February 1982) was a British artist, art teacher and plantsman. He was born in Swansea in South Wales, but worked mainly in East Anglia. As an artist he is best known for his port ...

. Leo Myers committed suicide on 7 April 1944 by taking an overdose of Veronal. In 1931, EQ married the architect Christopher "Kit" Nicholson, youngest son of the painters William Nicholson and Mabel Pryde, and brother to Ben Nicholson and Nancy Nicholson. Kit and EQ had three children: two daughters, Jane Kasmin and textile designer

Louisa Creed Louisa may refer to: Places ;Australia * Louisa Island (Tasmania) ;Canada * Louisa or Lac-Louisa, a community in Wentworth, Quebec ;Malaysia * Louisa Reef, Sabah ;United States * Louisa, Kentucky * Louisa, Missouri * Louisa, Virginia * Lou ...

, and a son, the painter Tim Nicholson. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

EQ and the children lived at first at Yew Cottage on

Cranborne Chase Cranborne Chase () is an area of central southern England, straddling the counties Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire. It is part of the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). The area is dominated by, ...

in Dorset, and then, from 1941 until 1947, at Alderholt Mill House, near

Fordingbridge Fordingbridge is a town and broader civil parish with a population of 6,000 on the River Avon in the New Forest District of Hampshire, England, near the Dorset and Wiltshire borders and on the edge of the New Forest, famed for its late mediev ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

. Kit Nicholson died of injuries following a glider crash in Italy on 28 July 1948. EQ died in London in 1992.

Career

EQ trained briefly at the Slade School of Fine Arts under Henry Tonks before studying

batik Batik is an National costume of Indonesia, Indonesian technique of Resist dyeing, wax-resist dyeing applied to the whole cloth. This technique originated from the island of Java, Indonesia. Batik is made either by drawing dots and lines of ...

in Paris in 1926. She later worked in batik as an assistant to Marion Dorn; she also designed rugs. When she was 20 she designed the interior of the new family home at Leckhampton House. After her marriage, she worked in Nicholson's

Modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

architecture practice, where his student and protégé Hugh Casson and his wife

Margaret Margaret is a female first name, derived via French () and Latin () from grc, μαργαρίτης () meaning "pearl". The Greek is borrowed from Persian. Margaret has been an English name since the 11th century, and remained popular through ...

also worked. EQ designed the interiors of Nicholson's building for the London Gliding Club at

Dunstable Dunstable ( ) is a market town and civil parish in Bedfordshire, England, east of the Chiltern Hills, north of London. There are several steep chalk escarpments, most noticeable when approaching Dunstable from the north. Dunstable is the ...

in 1936. From about 1936 until 1950, EQ worked with her sister-in-law Nancy Nicholson, who had already printed textile designs both for her brother Ben Nicholson and for his wife

Barbara Hepworth Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth (10 January 1903 – 20 May 1975) was an English artist and sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism and in particular modern sculpture. Along with artists such as Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo, Hepworth was a lea ...

at her Poulk Press. EQ's designs from this time include ''Black Goose'' (1936), ''Daisy'' and ''Seaweed'' (1949). Some of these designs were later screen-printed by Edinburgh Weavers. One of her best-known designs is ''Runner Bean'', which dates from about 1950, and was used in Hugh Casson's furnishing of the

Royal Yacht A royal yacht is a ship used by a monarch or a royal family. If the monarch is an emperor the proper term is imperial yacht. Most of them are financed by the government of the country of which the monarch is head. The royal yacht is most often ...

and for hand-printed wallpapers by Cole & Son. The archive of the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, includes a collection of EQ's drawings and textiles. Some of her designs are still being commercially produced. For a period of only about fifteen years from about 1941, EQ worked intensely as a painter, in gouache, crayon and collage, in a style that owes something to

Georges Braque Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculpture, sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his all ...

, whom she greatly admired. She had one show, with

Peter Rose Pulham Peter Rose Pulham (1910–1956) was a British photographer and surrealist painter. Examples of his works are in the collections of the Tate and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Pulham was born in 1910 in Norfolk. In the 1930s, he starte ...

(1910–56) and Keith Vaughan (1912–77), at the Hanover Gallery in 1950. Works from this period are in the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

, the New Hall Art Collection and the

National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: *National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra *National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London, with s ...

; they have been compared to those of other artist-designers such as Edward Bawden (1903–89) and

Eric Ravilious Eric William Ravilious (22 July 1903 – 2 September 1942) was a British painter, designer, book illustrator and wood-engraver. He grew up in Sussex, and is particularly known for his watercolours of the South Downs and other English landsc ...

(1903–42).

Early life

Career

References

Further reading

See also