Artist: William Nicholson
Date: 1912
Medium: Oil on panel
Dimensions: 32 × 39.5 cm
Credit: Towner Collection, acquired with the assistance of the MGC/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, National Art Collections Fund and the Friends of the Towner. Image Towner Eastbourne
William Nicholson was a painter, printmaker and designer. Early in his career he was notable for poster design, working in collaboration with his brother-in-law. He also had an interest in the theatre, working on designs for several plays including the original production of Peter Pan. Whilst he is remembered for his portraiture and still life paintings, Nicholson’s many Sussex landscape paintings meant he became known as ‘the painter of the Downs’.
Judd’s Farm was an isolated farm on the 650 acres which were developed in the 1920s to become the town of Peacehaven – then synonymous with unregulated building and destruction of downland. The farm is known to be around Rottingdean, where Nicholson was living at the time.