Published to accompany the exhibition at The Women’s Art Collection, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge (March – September, 2026)

Relative Ties highlights the work of three generations of women artists from the illustrious Nicholson family – Mabel Pryde Nicholson (1871-1918), her daughter Nancy Nicholson (1899-1977) and daughter-in-law EQ Nicholson (1908-1992), and EQ’s daughter Louisa Creed (b.1937). Together, they form a celebrated line of women artists working in a multiplicity of spaces, contexts and mediums, ranging from paintings and works on paper to wallpaper and fabric. 

A key aspect of the exhibition is the emphasis on the manual versus the mechanical. The curator Harriet Loffler has been granted unprecedented access to Nancy Nicholson’s printing materials, metal type and zinc stencils, giving the reader access to the artist’s process as much as to her designs.

To accompany the exhibition, contemporary artist and practitioner Katie Schwab (b.1985) has been commissioned to create a response to the practices, materials and techniques of the artists in the show, in the form of an ambitious, sculpted carpet together with Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh.

Softcover
112 pages
ISBN 9781917976008
Dimensions: 216x210mm.