Home from Home: The Red Jersey by Mabel Nicholson

My article ‘Home from Home: The Red Jersey by Mabel Nicholson‘, originally written for the Scottish Society for Art History journal, has been published on the Aberdeen Archives, Gallery and Museums website.

Mabel Pryde or Mabel Nicholson?

Mabel Scott Lauder Pryde (1871-1918) was born in Edinburgh in 1871. She was named after her maternal great-uncle, the Royal Scottish Academician Robert Scott Lauder (1803-1969) and her surname was that of her father, Dr David Pryde (1834-1907), a pioneer of education for girls and young women. She grew up in the Scottish capital in the centre of its artistic, literary and theatrical networks, not least through her brother, the artist James (‘Jimmie’) Pryde (1866-1941).

She met William Nicholson (1872-1949) in 1888, when they were students at Hubert von Herkomer (1849-1914)’s art school in Bushey, Hertfordshire. He nicknamed her ‘Prydie’, an affectionate shortening of her surname, more commonly applied to those of boys and men, by which she was known for the rest of her life. On their marriage in 1893, she became Mabel Nicholson and it was under this name that she exhibited her work. She thereafter lived in England, until her death in London in 1918, aged forty-seven and a victim of the Spanish influenza epidemic.

The Red Jersey

The sitter for The Red Jersey was Nicholson’s youngest child of four, Christopher ‘Kit’ Nicholson (1904-48). As can be seen in the painting, Nicholson portrayed her children with unsentimental realism, despite or because of her deep attachment to them. She was scrupulous in paying them a modelling fee, as much out of respect for their contribution to her practice as a signifier of her professionalism.

Here, Kit regards his mother directly, an expression of forbearance upon his face. The composition is simple and striking: using the dark background often favoured by the artist, the approximately eight-year old child is posed unusually if comfortably against cushions of the same hue, themselves placed upon a mahogany surface just visible along the lower right edge of the canvas. The contrast with the high colour of the titular garment and the sitter’s skin is pronounced, whilst a sensory aspect is introduced in the play of hair and skin between cushion, face and hands.

Home from Home

Nicholson painted The Red Jersey whilst living at The Grange, Rottingdean on England’s south coast. It became the first of her works to enter a public collection when it was acquired by Aberdeen Art Gallery in 1920. The Gallery’s loan of it to the 2024 exhibition Prydie: The Life and Art of Mabel Pryde Nicholson, represented a homecoming for the work. My article explores its journey from the easel to this exhibition, from home to home and I hope you enjoy reading it.

For more on Mabel Pryde Nicholson follow this link, for more on Aberdeen Art Gallery please read this blog and for more on modern Scottish women artists, try this feature.