William Nicholson

William Nicholson is best known as an illustrator and graphic artist. In the early 1920's he expanded his artistic practice and became a distinguished portrait painter, recognized by the royal family when knighted in 1936. Fellow artist James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) encouraged Nicholson's talent, directing him to the London publisher William Heinemann and later influencing his painted work. Heinemann initially commissioned the artist to produce a series of woodcut illustrations for the book "An Alphabet" which was published in conjunction with "London Types" and "An Almanac of Twelve Sports" in 1898.
This drawing for the Almanac's month of February is preparatory work and perhaps the final model for the lithograph of "Coursing", one of twelve produced for the publication. Nicholson, using his typically spare design aesthetic, pares down the composition, illustrating the sport with a dapper man on horseback and two elegant greyhounds in the midst of chasing prey. The Morgan is also home to Rudyard Kipling's manuscript for the Almanac (MA 935) and two copies of the printed book (PML 20060 and PML 128889); one of which is included in Gordon Ray's "The Illustrator and the English Book", no. 292. Inspired by Nicholson's illustrations, Kipling wrote verses to accompany each sport. The verses for "Coursing" are "Most men harry the world for fun - / Each man seeks it a different way / But 'of all daft devils under the sun / A grey'ound's the daftest' said / Jorrocks J." Only six preparatory designs for this publication are known to currently survive, including the Morgan one.