Elsie Myers was born in London. She worked as a batik printer for the designer Marion Dorn before her marriage to Kit Nicholson in 1931. She collaborated with her husband, designing interiors for his modernist buildings, including the London Gliding Club, built in 1936. She also worked with Nancy Nicholson, printing textiles and working at her graphic design company, Poulk Press, E.Q. also continued with her own textile designs, taking natural forms, plants and animals and transforming them into striking repeat patterns, often using lino blocks. In Black Goose of 1938 the shape of the bird is set off by a subtle slate-blue ground, whereas the silkscreen Runner Beans of c.1950 is a delicate pattern of twining stems and plant studies. An exhibition of her work leaves interrupted by hot red flowers. It was used on the Royal Yacht Britannia.
During the Second World War Nicholson began to paint still life and at the Hanover Gallery, London in 1950 was shared with Peter Rose Pulham and Keith Vaughan. |
