Morris Dancers at the Gate of Blenheim Palace

William Nicholson began his career designing posters and eventually published several successful portfolios of woodblock prints. One of these portfolios was a series entitled Twelve Portraits, which included a likeness of James McNeill Whistler. By 1901, Nicholson had given up printmaking as a full-time career and shifted to painting. One of his first themes as a painter was that of the Morris Dancers, a group of folk dancers invited by the Duke of Marlborough to perform at Blenheim Palace (Winston Churchill’s ancestral home) near Nicholson’s home in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England. Morris dancing, which exists still today and is accompanied by music and features various implements, such as sticks, swords, and handkerchiefs, was a firmly established English custom by Shakespeare’s time – a yearly tradition varying slightly by village and ensuring farmers and peasants good luck and a bountiful harvest. Britain had reacted to the industrialization and urbanization of the nation during the nineteenth century by idealizing and romanticizing the past and the countryside, and Nicholson was perhaps appealing to this contemporary interest in folk traditions. The influence of Whistler’s brushwork and atmospheric tones can be seen in Morris Dancers at the Gate of Blenheim Palace, as well as in other early paintings by Nicholson. The palette uses bright colors of red, white, and green characteristic of the dancers’ costumes, contrasted with muted browns in the background. Nicholson was also interested in set and costume design for theatrical productions, as well as in portraiture and teaching (Churchill was one of his students). This work is notable for being the only Nicholson oil painting on permanent view in North America.