Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, West Sussex, is staging the first full survey of British painter William Nicholson (1872-1949) in 25 years, running from 22 November 2025 to 10 May 2026. The exhibition aims to present Nicholson's diverse output—including posters made with the Beggarstaff Brothers, woodcuts, book illustrations, theatre costumes, portraits, still lifes, and landscapes—as an integrated whole, rather than isolating individual media as past shows have done.
Nicholson has long been overshadowed by his more famous son, Ben Nicholson, and dismissed as a minor artist due to his refusal to join movements or exhibit societies. This survey seeks to reposition him as a sophisticated, versatile figure whose approach to light and tone was essentially abstract, challenging the perception that he was merely a conventional Edwardian portraitist. The show matters because it addresses a significant gap in Modern British art scholarship and may prompt a re-evaluation of an artist whose work has been unfairly siloed and underappreciated.