Nicholls was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, the son of an English father and an Irish mother. As a child he spent a good deal of time with relatives in County Cavan. A quantity surveyor by training, in 1935 he turned to painting, in which he was self-taught. His early pictures are conventional watercolours, but later he embraced surrealism and other forms of abstraction, being influenced by Cézanne, Picasso, Klee and Miró. While living in London he took a studio in Fitzroy Street and exhibited
at the influential Spectrum Gallery.
With the approach of war he moved to Dublin, along with Georgette Rondel, and remained there until 1946. He was introduced to the White Stag Group by Basil Rakoczi, whom he met in Dublin. In 1946 he experienced a deep religious conversion and henceforth religion played an important part in his thinking.
In 1953 he gave up painting and began to study philosophy and religion, but he returned to painting in the 1960s, being by then influenced by native African art and the work of the French painter Jean Dubuffet (1901-85), with its emphasis on images derived from graffiti and children’s art. During his years in Dublin he also wrote and published poetry.
Nick Nicholls died in London in 1991.
Nick Nicholls' work featured in "The White Stag Group" (2011) Exhibition. Please click here to view the catalogue.
His work also featured in "A Celebration of Irish Art and Modernism" (2011) Exhibition. Please click here to view the catalogue.
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