I shall be giving the talk ‘Mabel Pryde Nicholson: An Artist of Edinburgh’ for Rottingdean Heritage on 10 August 2024. It will accompany the exhibition Prydie: The Life and Art of Mabel Pryde Nicholson at The Grange Gallery this summer.
oil on canvas, 92 x 73cm
Private Collection on loan to the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh
Mabel Pryde Nicholson
Mabel Nicholson (née Pryde) was born in Edinburgh in 1871. She grew up in the centre of the Scottish capital’s artistic, literary and theatrical centres. She was the sister of the artist James Pryde and the great-niece of Robert Scott Lauder and James Eckford Lauder, who were both members of the Royal Scottish Academy She trained at The Herkomer School, Bushey, Hertfordshire, where she met her future husband William Nicholson. They married in 1893 and Pryde continued painting and exhibiting as domestic responsiblities allowed, not least as the eventual mother of Ben, Tony, Nancy and Kit; her children went on to become an artist, soldier, designer and architect respectively. Mabel died in 1918, aged forty-six, of Spanish influenza.
oil on canvas, 51 x 40cm
National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh: Presented by Lewis and Louisa Creed 2006
An Artist of Edinburgh
My talk will examine Mabel in the context of her Scottisness. Topics will include the opportunities for women to become professional artists in late nineteenth-century Scotland and the fortunes of Mabel’s Scottish female contemporaries. Her relationship with the Scottish art world will be explored, concluding with the post-humous inclusion of three of her works in the Royal Glasgow Institute’s Annual Exhibition of 1920 and the works by her now held in Scottish public collections. Further information about my talk and the parallel exhibition will be provided on the Rottingdean Heritage website in due course.
For more about Mabel Pryde Nicholson, you could read this article, as well as my Women at Work post.
