British-American (1946-)

Graham Nickson is a painter of landscapes, or to be more precise, a painter of how people and objects occupy space.  He is an observer.  Graham Nickson is keenly aware of what he does and how he does it.  His works are often highly colored, artificial if you will, because these are not real landscapes but vehicles to assess man's place in the world.  They are philosophy. Just retired as the Dean of the New York Studio School, he is currently the subject of a retrospective there through November 11, 2024.  His work is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art; The Morgan Library & Museum; the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, and the Yale University Art Gallery, among others.

Drawing, first and foremost, has always been Nickson’s basis for understanding art. “[Drawing] is the most direct means of describing an experience or an idea,” Nickson has said, describing the discipline as “the most crucial pathway to understanding in art” that connects painting and sculpture. 

This work is a departure for Nickson in that it is in black and white.  Nickson, who has shown in New York since the mid-1970s, is particularly identified by his strong geometric compositions and saturated color. In the absence of color, it becomes clear to Nickson that the disciplines of painting and drawing are equal.  The heavy contrasts between light and dark emphasize Nickson’s taut composition and imply the artist’s characteristic bold colors. Nickson claims: “The implications of color that in many cases is given off by black and white and grey may be translated into the most outrageous or radical of color experiences by following through on the implications of the color in the drawings. I like to think I am drawing in color.”