Winifred Nicholson

Winifred Nicholson
Nicholson in 1969, photographed by Pamela Chandler
Born	Rosa Winifred Roberts 21 December 1893 Oxford, England
Died	5 March 1981 Carlisle, Cumbria, England
Nationality	British
Spouse(s)	Ben Nicholson
Website	winifrednicholson.com

Winifred Nicholson (21 December 1893 – 5 March 1981) was a British painter. She was married to the painter Ben Nicholson, and was thus the daughter-in-law of the painter William Nicholson and his wife, the painter Mabel Pryde. She was the mother of the painter Kate Nicholson.

Winifred Nicholson was a colourist who developed a personal impressionistic style, concentrating on domestic still life objects and landscapes. She often combined the two subjects as seen in her painting From Bedroom Window, Bankshead showing a landscape viewed through a window, with flowers in a vase in the foreground.

Nicholson was born Rosa Winifred Roberts in Oxford on 21 December 1893. She was the eldest of the three children of the Liberal Party politician Charles Henry Roberts and Lady Cecilia Maude Howard, daughter of the politician George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle, and of the activist Rosalind Howard. Nicholson started painting as a teenager with her grandfather George Howard, who was a capable amateur painter and a friend of the Pre-Raphaelites William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, and of the Italian landscape painter Nino Costa, founder of the Etruscan School. Nicholson attended the Byam Shaw School of Art in London from about 1910 or 1912 until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, and again from 1918–1919.

In 1919 Nicholson travelled with her father, who had been Under-Secretary of State for India, to Burma (now Myanmar), Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and India.