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William Nichols is a representational landscape painter living in Chicago, IL where he was born. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1966 and simultaneously attended University of Chicago. He conducted postgraduate work at the Slade School of Art in London and the University of Illinois where he earned his Master’s in Fine Art. He is an emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.
Nichols is lauded for his representational landscape paintings and for his mastery of oil paint, treated as watercolor in his hands, to create an intimacy in allowing color to resonate silently and softly. Balance, or visual conflict, is important to the artist who shares that good, truthful, and interesting art forms require balance, the kind that mimics the human condition. The conflict of dark against light, warm against cool, ambiguity against clarity, texture against smoothness, composed in a rhythmic way on the large-scale canvases of Nichols. Much like the eye would experience the details of a landscape on the same visual plain, Nichols keeps his composition in the middle ground, pushing the viewer to see the “particulars of things,” with very little deep back ground, and a sense of abstraction to convey the beauty and pleasure of how the work is painted and structured.
The artist paints to create a meaningful experience for whoever looks upon his canvas. He wants the viewer to dwell on the soft and quiet side of nature, to feel the conflicting elements in the painting, and to make unseen things visible and felt. His work does not feature figures, for he wants the viewer to feel a sense of privacy and oneness with the world they are pushed into, just as he paints on a large scale to make the viewer a part of the environment.
The work of William Nichols has been featured in solo exhibitions from coast to coast for more than fifty years. His work has been selected in the Art in Embassy Program, where it was on display in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and his work is included in exhibitions throughout Europe. His work is published in more than a dozen books, and a dozen more magazines and periodicals. Selected collections include Museum of New Art (MONA), Milwaukee Art Museum, Hagertey Museum, Stanford University, Erie Art Musuem, and more.
