 After moving to the United States with her husband, Nicholls exhibited her works at the Society of American Artists.She exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Arts and the Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.She received awards in Europe and the United States, including the Chicago World's Fair, a silver medal in Boston in 1885 for "Venetian Sunlight", and a gold medal at the American Art Association of New York for "Those Evening Bells".