Winifred Nicholson (1893 - 1981) is one of Cumbria's best known artists. In this talk Christopher Andreae will take a close look at paintings produced by the artist in a career spanning from childhood in the 1890s to her last painterly adventures in the 1970s. Her work was a succession of small, intense, quick wonders. The aim of the talk will be to ask some probably unanswerable questions. Was she a "visionary" artist? Was she a traditionalist? In what sense was she a "colourist"? Why did she try abstraction and then abandon it? Was she a painter of nature? How important to her art were people, other artists, places and flowers?

As a friend of Winifred Nicholson in the '60s and '70s, author, Christopher Andreae draws on Winifred's extensive correspondence, previously unpublished paintings and offers a fresh and rounded view of Winifred Nicholson's life and art in his new book.

Works by Winifred Nicholson from the Tullie House collections are on display in Old Tullie House foyer.

Refreshments will be available at the end of the evening and Christopher will be on hand to sign his new publication.

See Tullie House - 'What's On' from mid-June.

In the 1920s, Winifred Nicholson was one of Britain's most promising painters. Sometimes referred to at the female Van Gogh [because of her bold use of colour], she has for many years been referred to as the first wife of artist Ben Nicholson before she's described as 'the woman who paints flowers'. Now though, Christopher Andreae has written a new biography about Winifred Nicholson and he joins Jenni to champion the work of a woman who's love of light and landscapes was as significant to her output as her fondness for painting flowers and rainbows.

In the 1920's Winifred Nicholson, experimenting alongside her husband, Ben Nicholson, emerged as a ground-breaking painter. To celebrate publication of the only full-scale monograph in print on the work of this significant British artist, author Christopher Andreae will give an illustrated talk.