EQ Nicholson
Encyclopedia
EQ Nicholson was an English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 painter and fabric designer.

Early life

Born Elsie Queen Myers in London, EQ was the daughter of novelist Leo Myers
Leo Myers
-Life:He was born in Cambridge into a cultured family; his father was the writer Frederic William Henry Myers and his mother the photographer Eveleen Tennant. He was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge...

 and his American born wife Elsie Mellen Nicholson (née Palmer); she had a younger sister Eveleen Myers Myers. Her father socialised with many artists including artists such as the sculptor Frank Dobson
Frank Dobson (sculptor)
Frank Dobson R.A. was a British artist and sculptor.Dobson attended the Hastings School of Art and was then an apprentice in the studio of Sir William Reynolds-Stephens. From 1910 to 1912 he attended the City and Guilds of London Art School in Kennington, South London...

 and painter Cedric Morris
Cedric Morris
Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris, 9th Baronet was a British artist, art teacher and plantsman. He was born in Swansea but worked mainly in East Anglia...

. Leo Myers committed suicide in 1948

Career

EQ trained briefly at the Slade School of Fine Arts under Henry Tonks
Henry Tonks
Henry Tonks, FRCS was a British draughtsman and painter of figure subjects, chiefly interiors, and a caricaturist...

 before studying in Paris with Marion Dorn, where she designed batik
Batik
Batik is a cloth that traditionally uses a manual wax-resist dyeing technique. Batik or fabrics with the traditional batik patterns are found in Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, China, Azerbaijan, India, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, and Singapore.Javanese traditional batik, especially from...

 fabric and rugs.

In 1931, EQ married the architect Christopher "Kit" Nicholson
Christopher Nicholson
Christopher Nicholson was a leading British architect and designer of the early Modern Movement in Britain. His most notable works of the 1930s were comparable to the advanced modern abstract style of his older brother, the artist Ben Nicholson, OM, .-Early life and education:The son of artists...

. She assisted in the office her husband ran with Hugh Casson
Hugh Casson
Sir Hugh Maxwell Casson, KCVO, RA, RDI, was a British architect, interior designer, artist, and influential writer and broadcaster on 20th century design. He is particularly noted for his role as director of architecture at the 1951 Festival of Britain on London's South Bank.Casson's family...

, which produced Modernist architecture.

Her best known design is 'Runner Bean' (c1950). This design was used as a furnishing fabric aboard the Her Majesty's Yacht Britannia
HMY Britannia
Her Majesty's Yacht Britannia is the former Royal Yacht of the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. She was the 83rd such vessel since the restoration of King Charles II in 1660. She is the second Royal yacht to bear the name, the first being the famous racing cutter built for The Prince of Wales...

 and also as hand-printed wallpapers for Cole & Son. Her work was influenced by her contemporary and sister-in-law Nancy Nicholson
Nancy Nicholson
Nancy Nicholson was a British painter and fabric designer.Born Annie Mary Pryde Nicholson, she was the only daughter of the artists Sir William Nicholson and Mabel Pryde. She had three brothers, sculptor Ben Nicholson, architect Christopher Nicholson and Anthony, who was killed in action in 1918...

.

EQ died in London in 1992. She was survived by her three children, two daughters Jane and textile designer Louisa Creed, and son and painter Tim Nicholson.

Her designs are still being produced by Borderline Fabrics.

See also

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