Relative Ties

An exploration of the Nicholson women’s artistic legacy across three generations, highlighting matrilineal influence, creative collaborations, textiles, and painting

Relative Ties highlights the work of three generations of women artists from the illustrious Nicholson family—Mabel Nicholson, Nancy Nicholson, EQ Nicholson, and Louisa Creed—and explores what women inherit from their mothers, what can be passed down matrilineal lines, and the importance of siblings to a creative practice. It brings together designs, paintings, preparatory drawings, textiles, and wallpaper, alongside unprecedented insights into the tools and techniques the artists used.

Together, the Nicholson women—Mabel, her daughter Nancy, daughter-in-law EQ, and EQ’s daughter Louisa—form a celebrated line of artists working from the late nineteenth century to the present day across a multiplicity of spaces, contexts, and mediums, ranging from paintings and works on paper to wallpaper and fabric.

Published on the occasion of an exhibition at The Women’s Art Collection, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, this catalogue also includes a newly commissioned work by contemporary artist Katie Schwab (b. 1985) responding directly to the Nicholson women’s legacy.

Exhibition Schedule

The Women’s Art Collection, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge

6 March – 6 September 2026

York City Art Gallery 
February – May 2027

Published by Paul Holberton Publishing/Distributed by Yale University Press