Essay on the Beggarstaff Brothers

2095 Words9 Pages
William Nicholson (1872-1949) scotish and James Pryde (1866-1941) who was an English man were brother in-laws, two painter/artist who came together as ‘Beggarstaff’, this was actually a pseudonym. They adopted this name when one day in an old stable they saw ’Beggarstaff Brothers’ written on a sack of fodder. They used this name to keep their identity away from the world of commercial art. These respected painters teamed up and devoted themselves to make posters, both had different perspectives and views on things, their opinions on artistic matters also differed widely but that is what made their work unique and interesting. William Nicholson was born in Newark, Nottinghamshire. He was first educated at Magnus Grammar school and then he studied at a private art school that was run by Hubert Von Herkomer, and later at Academie Julian in Paris. Nicholson married James Pryde’s sister Mabel Pryde. James Pryde was born in Edinburg, he went to the Royal Scottish Academy for his education at first and he also studied at the Academe Julian for three months, where they both became friends. The Beggarstaffs founded an advertising design studio in 1894, they bought a drastic change in the history of poster art, their designs were bold and simple with the use of flat images and silhouettes. They were famous for their new technique, collage which was the use of cut pieces of paper, moved and pasted positions on a board. They left behind the floral trend of art nouveau which made their work really plain. Their easy to understand designs, bold colours and suggested lines were influential in the making of modernist style in the early 1900’s. Their work was innovative and something that had not been done in the past, despite the fact that they climbed the stairs of artistic success but financially their work broke them down, they weren’t really preferred to design posters

More about Essay on the Beggarstaff Brothers

Open Document