Double vision | 16 May 2019

The best double acts — Laurel and Hardy, Gilbert & George, Rodgers and Hart — are often made up of two quite different personalities. So it was with the painters William Nicholson and James Pryde, who worked together under the names of J. & W. Beggarstaff. Their similarities and dissimilarities are the subject of a highly entertaining exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Nicholson (1872–1949) and Pryde (1866–1941) are sometimes dubbed the ‘Beggarstaff brothers’. They weren’t really siblings, but they were brothers-in-law. At the age of 21, in 1893, Nicholson eloped to Ruislip with Pryde’s sister Mabel. The couple set up house in an ex-pub, the Eight Bells  at Denham, and their baby Ben (later to become a notable artist himself) was born the following year.

The collaboration between Pryde and Nicholson — the starting-point of the exhibition — began shortly afterwards. It didn’t last long, petering out before the end of the decade.