Sir William Nicholson (1872-1949)

X for Xylographer / 1897
Lithographic print of a hand coloured woodcut / Printed in December 1897 with a post date of 1898
10.75 x 8.75 ins / 27.5 x 22.5 cms

PROVENANCE
Private Collection, London

LITERATURE
From An Alphabet (popular Edition) published by Heinemann, London, 1898

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Although James Pryde and William Nicholson continued to collaborate under the pseudonym `J. and W. Beggarstaff' Pryde drifted back to painting c.1896, while Nicholson, still convinced that graphic art of one kind of another could be made to pay, decided to try his hand at printmaking. Once identifying that woodcuts most suited his temperament and style it took Nicholson two or three years to become technically proficient. Practical as ever, he conceived the idea of venturing into the commemorative print market, initially with a hand coloured woodcut of the Prince of Wales's Derby winner, Persimmon.

This print was shown at the Fine Art Society in Bond Street, London. It was noticed by the American Artist James McNeill Whistler. It failed to make a public impact but with a second woodcut at a later show, Whistler recommended Nicholson's work to his friend, the publisher William Heinemann, and by the time Persimmon was reproduced in the January 1897 edition of the Magazine of Art its creator was hard at work on the first of the well known series of woodcuts that Heinemann was to issue between 1897 and 1902.

Heinemann's company, founded in 1890 was doing well and he was on the lookout for new ideas. Nicholson obliged with two woodcut designs for Alphabet approved, that was to mark two intensive years of productivity for Nicholson and Heinemann.

Nicholson still had relatively little experience of working on large woodblocks of the size chosen for this project, and the circumstances in which these were engraved were far from ideal, living in a dingy, badly lit flat in Earls court, but the work must nevertheless been completed in about two months. Several designs passed through more than one version, sometimes due to unsatisfactory compositions and occasional slips of the tool.

Nicholson's Alphabet was published shortly before Christmas 1897 (its title-page post dated 1898) in three editions that set the pattern for future publications of the same kind: an Edition de Luxe consisting of 26 impressions taken from the original woodblocks and `Library' and `Popular' editions in which the hand-coloured cuts were reproduced lithographically.

While a number of the subjects in this set of prints are traditional, others are modern, and indeed several of the images depict friends or contemporaries of the artist. Another difference between the series and its prototypes lies in the historicising approach to the figures. Drawn from Elizabethan times to Nicholson's own day, the costumes of these figures recall the fancy-dress balls that were such an important feature of social life during the 1890's.c

For further reading please see `The Art of William Nicholson' Colin Campbell, Merlin James,, Patricia Reed and Sanford Schwartz, by The Royal Academy, London.