BIOGRAPHIES OF BRITISH ARTISTS

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BIOGRAPHIES OF BRITISH ARTISTS

Edited by Mark Quinlan

NAPPER, JOHN

John Pelham Napper was born in London on 17 September 1916. He was the son of an opera singer mother and an actor and water-colourist father. John He was educated at Frensham Heights, Surrey, and at the Dundee School of Art. He entered the Royal Academy Schools and then became a pupil of the distinguished [...]

NASH, JOHN

John Northcote Nash was born in London on 11 April 1893. He was the younger brother of the artist Paul Nash and was educated at Wellington College. He first worked as a journalist for a local paper but was encouraged by his brother Paul to turn his hand to watercolour landscapes and comic drawings. A [...]

NASH, PAUL

Paul Nash was born on 11 May 1889 at Kensington, London. He was the son of a successful lawyer and was the elder brother of John Nash. He grew up in a troubled household and was frequently ill as a child. His mother suffered from depression, spending long periods in mental institutions. As a teenager, [...]

NASMYTH, ALEXANDER

Alexander Nasmyth was born on 9 September 1758 in the family home in the Grassmarket, Edinburgh, Scotland. He was the second son of Michael Nasmyth. While his forbears had been Lowland landed gentry, his father and grandfather were involved with the construction of some of the earliest houses in what would become known as the [...]

NEMON, OSCAR

Oscar Nemon was born in the small market-town of Osijek in Croatia (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) on 13 March 1906. He was the elder son of Mavro and Eugenia Nemon, members of the local Jewish community. Oscar was educated at Osijek and developed a talent for draughtsmanship and sculpture. He took his baccalaureate [...]

NETTLESHIP, JOHN TRIVETT

John Trivett Nettleship was born at Kettering in Northamptonshire on 11 February 1841. He was the second son of Henry John Nettleship, a solicitor in the local firm of Lamb and Stringer. His mother was Isabella Ann, daughter of James Hogg, vicar of Geddington and master of Kettering Grammar School. John was for some time [...]

NEVINSON, C R W

Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson was born in London on 13 August 1889. He was the son of radical journalist Henry Woodd Nevinson and the suffragist Margaret Nevinson. His parents’ causes were so unpopular that Nevinson remembered as a child being booed by neighbours whilst walking down the street. He attended the St John’s Wood School [...]

NEWCOMB, MARY

Mary Slatford was born on 25 January 1922 at Harrow-on-the-Hill, Middlesex. She was the daughter of Charles and Mabel Slatford. The family later moved to Trowbridge in Wiltshire, near the White Horse carved into the Downs at Westbury. The children would climb up to the horse, while their mother sat nearby, and Mary recalled sitting [...]

NEWTON, ALGERNON

Algernon Newton was born at Hampstead, London on 23 February 1880. His grandfather, the artist Henry Charles Newton, was co-founder of the Winsor & Newton art-supply company. Algernon studied at Clare College, Cambridge and subsequently attended Frank Calderon’s School of Animal Painting, while also attending classes at the Slade and at the South Kensington School of [...]

NICHOLSON, BEN

Benjamin Lauder Nicholson was born on 10 April 1894 at Denham, Buckinghamshire. He was the son of the artists William Nicholson and Mabel Pryde. The family moved to London in 1896 and Nicholson was educated as a boarder at Gresham’s School at Holt in Norfolk. He studied at the Slade 1910-11 and spent the years [...]

NICHOLSON, SIR WILLIAM

William Newzam Prior Nicholson was born at Newark-on-Trent on 5 February 1872. He was the son of William Newzam Nicholson, MP, an industrialist of Newark and Annie Elizabeth Prior. He was educated at Magnus School, Newark, where he was taught drawing by a former pupil of Sir William Beechey. He studied at Hubert von Herkomer’s [...]

NICHOLSON, WINIFRED

Winifred Roberts was born in 21 December 1893 at Oxford. Her parents were Charles Roberts, a Liberal Party politician, ex-academic and (through his wife) landowner, and Lady Cecilia Dacre, daughter of George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle. George Howard was an accomplished painter as well as a friend and patron of many distinguished painters, including [...]

NICOL, ERSKINE

Erskine Nicol was born at Leith, Edinburgh in 1825. Overcoming strong opposition from his parents, he took all opportunities that came his way to pursue art, first taking an apprenticeship under a decorative house painter and at the aged of 12, becoming a student at the Trustees’ Academy in Edinburgh, then under the stewardship of [...]

NIMPTSCH, ULI

Uli Nimptsch was born at Charlottenburg in Berlin on 22 May 1897. He was the younger son and second of four children of Siegfried Nimptsch, a broker on the Berlin Stock Exchange. Uli studied at the Applied Art School, Berlin (1915-17) and at the Berlin Academy (1919-26) under Professors Gerstel and Lederer. He was awarded [...]

NOBLE, MATTHEW

Matthew Noble was born at Hackness, near Scarborough in North Yorkshire, on 23 March 1817. He was the son of Robert Noble, a stonemason, and served his apprenticeship with his father. As a young man he travelled to London to study under John Francis (1780-1861), father of the sculptress Mary Thornycroft. Noble exhibited 100 works [...]

NOLAN, SIR SIDNEY

Sidney Nolan was born on 22 April 1917 in the suburb of Carlton, Melbourne, Australia. His family were Irish in origin. He attended the Brighton Road State School and then Brighton Technical School and left school aged 14. He enrolled at the Prahan Technical College, Department of Design and Crafts, in a course which he [...]

NOLLEKENS, JOSEPH

Joseph Nollekens was born in London on 11 August 1737. His father Joseph Francis Nollekens was a painter from Antwerp. The young Nollekens had no formal education and at the age of 13, entered the studio of the sculpture Peter Scheemakers, from whom he learned to appreciate the works of antiquity. From 1758 onwards, he frequented [...]

NORTHCOTE, JAMES

James Northcote was born in the parish of St Andrew’s, Plymouth on 22 October 1746. He was the son of a watchmaker and for a time, was apprenticed to his father. In his spare time, he drew and painted. In 1769 he set up as a portrait painter. Four years later, he went up to [...]

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