Private collection, UK

1980-1981: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Stoke on Trent City Museum and Art Gallery; Britstol City Art Gallery; Cartwright Hall, Bradford.
The Collections of Edinburgh Libraries and Museums and Galleries (permanent collection).

Duncan Robinson, William Nicholson: Paintings, Drawings & Prints (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1980).

''An Alphabet' is a series of lithograph prints. Nicholson completed them in 1897, submitting 'A' and 'D' for approval with William Heinemann who went on to publish them in 1898. 'Q for Quaker' is the only religious figure in the series, representing a member of one of many noncomformist branches of the church in England and Scotland from between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. The clothing worn by this figure would suggest a nod to the peak of the Quaker population during the seventeenth century, but it is just as likely that Nicholson was referencing their influence during his own lifetime when they were involved in numerous reform movements.

William Nicholson (1872-1949) was an accomplished portrait, landscape and still-life painter. He also designed costumes and sets for a number of theatre productions. Yet 'An Alphabet' is perhaps one of Nicholson's better known bodies of work, and incorporates characters spanning different time periods, occupations, social status and gender. They also encompass a whole cross-section of nineteenth-century British society and include a milk maid, an earl, a dandy and a yokel, a quaker, a trumpeter, and a flower girl.

Nicholson's public reputation as an artist was secured when, in the same year he executed the alphabet series, he completed a woodcut of Queen Victoria. After 1900 his work focussed more on landscape painting and portraiture, but the works he produced as a printmaker continue to be sought after and are held in high regard. His work can be found in public galleries across the UK and in national and international archival collections, museums, and institutions. He was appointed a Trustee of the Tate Gallery from 1934-39 and knighted in 1936.