Glasses

Sir William Nicholson, 1872–1949

ca. 1919

Oil on canvas, mounted on millboard

Yale Center for British Art

A still life painting depicts three drinking vessels on a red surface against a light-colored wall. A clear glass mug with a red handle is on the left, with a dark blue vase and a purple stemmed glass to its right. Two yellow ribbons hang vertically in the background. William Nicholson gained early fame as a graphic designer in the 1890s, producing posters in collaboration with the artist James Pryde. In the early twentieth century he became an equally celebrated still-life painter, with a particular talent for capturing the reflection of light off different surfaces. Nicholson’s passion for still life was a great influence on his eldest son, Ben, whose work is shown nearby. “I owe a lot to my father,” Ben claimed in 1963, “especially his poetic ideal and his still-life theme. That didn't come from Cubism as some people think, but from my father—not only from what he did as a painter, but from th