NICHOLS, Catherine Maude

1847 - 1923

Catherine Maude Nichols, known at Kate, was born at 32 Surrey Street, Norwich on 6 October 1847 and baptised at St Stephen's Church, Norwich on 5 November 1847, when her birth date is given as 5 October, eldest child of William Peter Nichols (8 April 1801-22 December 1878), a prison surgeon and owner of a lunatic asylum, of Alpington Hall, just outside Norwich, her mother was Matilda Mary Banister (13 May 1820-13 March 1904), only daughter of Revd John Banister, rector of Kelvedon Hatch, Essex, who married at Kelvedon Hatch on 26 August 1846, their two other children were Alfred Peter and Alice Emilia Sarah, both born in Norwich in 1860. Kate studied with David Hall McEwan (1817-1893), a member of the Royal Society of Watercolour Artists and, aged 27, spent two terms at the Norwich School of Art where she learned etching and won a prize in the Advanced Division and most of Kate’s output was dry point engraving. She travelled to France to join others painting there and 1876-1878 was at Barbizon school of painters, south of Paris, and by 1879 was in Newlyn, Cornwall amongst painters out of whom the ‘Newlyn Group’ of artists would emerge. Back home in Norwich, Kate was to draw from the countryside around Norwich as well as the urban landscape of the city itself and was a co-founder and president of the Woodpecker Sketch Club, a title she held until her death 34 years later. The Society, later Royal Society, of Painter-Etchers was formed in 1880 and two years later Kate submitted a diploma piece, 'Scotch Firs', for which she was elected the first female fellow. Kate exhibited widely and in 1889 she exhibited several watercolours at the Woodbridge Art Exhibition at the Assembly Room at the Bull Hotel in Woodbridge, Suffolk, and engraving at the Royal Academy 1877-1909. Kate was influenced by the Norwich School painters, whose work had hung in her family home in Surrey Street, Norwich and in 1907 she produced a folder of prints ‘After Crome’. Catherine Maude Nichols died at Surrey Street, Norwich on 30 January 1923, she was unmarried.

Royal Academy Exhibits
from Studio, 73 Surrey Street, Norwich
1877 1286 Rue des Cordonniers, Dives, Normandy - dry point
1888 975 Riverside, Norwich
1889 1045 Evening on the Broad
1909 1228 Dulton's Court, Elm Hill, Norwich - engraving

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Works by This Artist