Rachel Nicholson Sold at Auction Prices

Painter, b. 1934 -

Rachel Nicholson was born into an extraordinary artistic background — her mother was the sculptor Dame Barbara Hepworth and her father was Ben Nicholson. It was partly the burden of this heritage that stopped her from pursuing a career in art in early life.

Nicholson did not begin to paint until her her mid-forties, by which time her children were at school. She quickly established a reputation for rhythmically beautiful landscapes and minimal still-life paintings that were inspired by her father’s sense of space.

At her first London exhibition in 1980, Nicholson’s father looked at one of her still lifes and remarked, ‘I had never realised she could paint so well. I would have been happy to have painted that one myself.’