James Samuel Beale (1840-1912)
Sir William Newzam Prior Nicholson (Newark-on-Trent 1872 – Berkshire 1949)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1905 (signed and dated)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
965 x 908 mm (38 x 35 3/4 in)
Order this imageCollection
Standen House and Garden, West Sussex
NT 1214751
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, James Samuel Beale (1840-1912) by Sir William Nicholson (Newark-on-Trent 1872 – Berkshire 1949), signed and dated lower right: Nicholson 1905. A three-quarter-length portrait of a mature man, seated turned to the left, gazing to the left, fingers entwined on lap, wearing a suit and tie. The sitter was a senior partner in the London office of the Birmingham solicitors Beale & Co. The Beales lived in Holland Park and were friends with the Alexanders, Ionides and Debenhams and their country home was Standen. The artist was born at Newark-on-Trent; subsequently became a very popular painter of portraits and still-life. Married Mabel Pryde, sister of another Scottish artist, James Pryde - and the two artists produced a series of posters in the 1890s of outstanding artistic merit. After this, Nicholson made his own individual reputation by producing a remarkable series of woodcuts in colour in 1898. He was pre-eminently a designer and definitely realistic; qualities which are appreciated in many of his portraits, which are remarkable for simplicity, fidelity to nature, and the true character of the sitter.
Provenance
Commissioned by the sitter; by descent; on loan from the Executors of the Estate of Miss Helen M. Beale; given by Phyllis Wager (last surviving granddaughter of James and Margaret Beale), March 2009
Credit line
Standen, The Beale Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
Sir William Newzam Prior Nicholson (Newark-on-Trent 1872 – Berkshire 1949), artist
References
Reed 2011 Patricia Reed, William Nicholson Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Yale Universiy Press, 2011, 64