NICHOLSON, William

In 1897 William Nicholson and his brother-in-law, James Pryde, combined forces to form The Beggerstaff Brothers. Nicholson cut a series of wood blocks of ‘An Illustrated Alphabet’ for publisher William Heinemann. Originally these were issued in a very small run of woodcuts, hand coloured by Nicholson’s wife at the kitchen table. Their popularity led to the images being transferred to lithographic stones and printed as ‘quatorzains’ (a lithographic technique) in a bound volume by Heinemann. The original hand coloured woodcuts printed directly from the woodblocks are very scarce and some images were not reproduced in full in the bound volume.

Characters of Romance were produced by The Beggerstaff Brothers in 1905. Together, they enjoyed great success in producing printed images using few colours which were published loose by Heinemann. This complete collection is the first edition, dating from 1905. Using thick coarse paper and the rough side of the block, the prints have a rough quality recalling Toulouse Lautrec.