An exhibition of the work of one of Britain’s forgotten female artists is being held in East Sussex.
The Grange Gallery, in Rottingdean, is hosting the first exhibition of paintings by Mabel Pryde Nicholson in more than 100 years.
It will feature more than 30 objects from private collections and public institutions, as well as letters, photographs and personal objects.
The show coincides with the publication of the first biography of Pryde, who the gallery says was “overshadowed” by the artistic successes of her male relatives, including her husband, the portraitist and still-life painter, Sir William Nicholson.
Born in 1871, she was also the mother of abstract pioneer Ben Nicholson and modern architect Kit Nicholson, and the sister of the Scottish artist James Pryde.
She met her husband aged 17 while she was at art school and put painting aside after getting married.
When she returned to art, she had to fit it around other responsibilities and most of her work depicts domestic life – the interiors of her homes and her children.
A number of paintings were made at the Grange itself, a former vicarage in Rottingdean that was the Nicholsons’ home from 1909-1914.
During her lifetime, Pryde exhibited in London and earned enough from the sale of a single painting to commission the building of a studio in the Grange’s garden.
She died in 1918 during the Spanish flu epidemic.
The exhibition will look at the artist’s early years, her studies, her marriage and her family life with her four children.
It will also chart her success on the London art scene and explore her connections with other artists including Max Beerbohm, Walter Sickert, Rudyard Kipling and Marie Tempest.
The show – Prydie: the life and art of Mabel Pryde Nicholson – opens on 20 July and runs to 26 August.
