Listing Details
Archibald Nicoll. OBE (1886 – 1953)
Archibald Nicoll was born on a farm at Springston, about 40 minutes from central Christchurch. After leaving high school he first worked as a clerk for the Union Steam Ship Company. From 1905 – 1907 he studied at Canterbury College School of Art. In 1908 he moved to Auckland having accepted a teaching position at Elam School of Art, Auckland
University. He stayed at Elam until 1911 when he travelled to the UK to study painting, sculpture and architecture at the Edinburgh College of Art. While in the UK he had paintings accepted for exhibitions at both the Scottish Royal Academy and the Royal Academy of Arts London.
Nicoll returned to New Zealand in 1914 only to quickly enlist when war broke out. He served both in Egypt and at the Somme. At the Somme he was severely injured leading to the amputation of his right leg. He spent months recuperating in English hospitals before returning to New Zealand in 1918.
In 1920 he became director of Canterbury College School of Art and apart from a 4 year period in the late 1920’s he was to teach there until his retirement in 1945. Like many other artists he combined teaching with his own art practice regularly exhibiting throughout the country.
His influence on future generations of painters was immense. He was a skilled studio portraitist, but it was his interpretation of the Canterbury landscape that achieved him significant fame.
In 1947 Nicoll was asked his philosophy of art and replied “My philosophy of painting hardly amounts to a philosophy at all but is something much simpler than that. To set down selections of shapes and colours of objects seen in nature has for most of my life been a normal natural thing to do. One hopes always to be seeing (and feeling) more or better and getting something of it fixed in a drawing or painting with what skill and cunning can be brought to the job.” Yearbook of Arts 1947.
Image Dimensions: 380mm W x 290mm H
Framing: Framed
Framed Dimensions: 500mm W x 400mm H
