Nicholas Charles Williams (born 1961) is an English painter and draughtsman. Born in Surrey, he trained at Richmond College, London. His work aims to examine aspects of human behaviour, conveyed through symbolism and direct observational painting. He has been the subject of solo shows at various galleries, including the Russell-Cotes Museum, Bournemouth, Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro Cathedral, and Liverpool Cathedral for European Capital of Culture 2008. In 2001 he was awarded the Hunting Art Prize and in 2008 shortlisted for the Threadneedle Figurative Prize. [1]
Williams now lives and works in Cornwall, South West England and is a lifelong surfer. His studio is a former lifeboat station on the North coast of Cornwall.
Two paintings [2] by Williams, made for scientific analysis examining David Hockney's thesis on the use of optics by the Old Masters, have been presented in numerous lectures at major academic institutions and galleries throughout Europe and the USA. Presentations (led by Dr. David G. Stork) have taken place at Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Venice Biennale; The Louvre; National Gallery, London; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; de Young Museum, San Francisco; Oxford University; Cambridge University; Stanford University; Getty Research Institute; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
William Packer , art critic: “Nicholas Charles Williams is one of British Art's well-kept secrets.. even so his reputations is growing fast as both one of the most accomplished figurative artist of his generation, and one of the most unusual. Indeed there is no one else that I can think of who places himself quite so firmly in the great tradition of early Baroque, yet with no sense of anachronism or pastiche.” [3]
Ian Dejardin , Director, Dulwich Picture Gallery: "Williams may paint like a modern-day Counter-Reformation artist, but his subject matter is worlds away and unique to him, visually and intellectually gripping." [4]
Brian Sewell , art critic: "The quality of the painting seemed to me astounding". [5]
Mark Bills , Curator of Paintings Prints & Drawings, Museum of London: "An artist who has such a comfortable and informed relationship with the art of the past...he is able to draw on a large number of sources to produce fresh and vibrant images drawn and explored with consummate skill....they emerge from observation and the intimacy of the artist with his subject." [6]
Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting as opposed to conceptual art. By May 2017 the initial group of 13 British artists had expanded to 236 groups in 52 countries.
John Constable was an English landscape painter in the Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home – now known as "Constable Country" – which he invested with an intensity of affection. "I should paint my own places best", he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, "painting is but another word for feeling".
Lucian Michael Freud was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewish architect Ernst L. Freud and the grandson of Sigmund Freud. Freud got his first name "Lucian" from his mother in memory of the ancient writer Lucian of Samosata. His family moved to England in 1933 to escape the rise of Nazism. From 1942 to 1943 he attended Goldsmiths College, London. He served at sea with the British Merchant Navy during the Second World War.
English art is the body of visual arts made in England. England has Europe's earliest and northernmost ice-age cave art. Prehistoric art in England largely corresponds with art made elsewhere in contemporary Britain, but early medieval Anglo-Saxon art saw the development of a distinctly English style, and English art continued thereafter to have a distinct character. English art made after the formation in 1707 of the Kingdom of Great Britain may be regarded in most respects simultaneously as art of the United Kingdom.
Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota, is an English art historian and curator, who served as the Director of the Tate from 1988 to 2017. He is currently Chair of Arts Council England, a role which he has held since February 2017.
Charles Thomson is an English artist, poet and photographer. In the early 1980s he was a member of The Medway Poets. In 1999 he named and co-founded the Stuckists art movement with Billy Childish. He has curated Stuckist shows, organised demonstrations against the Turner Prize, run an art gallery, stood for parliament and reported Charles Saatchi to the OFT. He is frequently quoted in the media as an opponent of conceptual art. He was briefly married to artist Stella Vine.
The Stuckists Punk Victorian was the first national gallery exhibition of Stuckist art. It was held at the Walker Art Gallery and Lady Lever Art Gallery in Liverpool from 18 September 2004 to 20 February 2005 and was part of the 2004 Liverpool Biennial.
Sophie Gengembre Anderson was a French-born British artist who specialised in genre painting of children and women, typically in rural settings. She began her career as a lithographer and painter of portraits, collaborating with Walter Anderson on portraits of American Episcopal bishops. Her work, Elaine, was the first public collection purchase of a woman artist. Her painting No Walk Today was purchased for more than £1 million.
John Bourne is a British artist and painter, living and working in Wales, and a member of the Stuckists art movement. He founded the Wrexham Stuckists group in 2001 and has been exhibited in the group's shows since then, including The Stuckists Punk Victorian. He has also taken part in Stuckist demonstrations against the Turner Prize. The subject matter for his paintings, which are done in a simplified style, comes from his memories.
Elsa Dax is a French painter and a member of the Stuckists art movement. Major themes in her work are myth, legend and fairytale.
Charles Williams is a British artist. He is a founding member of the Stuckist art group and a member of the New English Art Club.
Euan Ernest Richard Uglow was a British painter. He is best known for his nude and still life paintings, such as German Girl and Skull.
Stuckist demonstrations since 2000 have been a key part of the Stuckist art group's activities and have succeeded in giving them a high-profile both in Britain and abroad. Their primary agenda is the promotion of painting and opposition to conceptual art.
Go West is the title of the first exhibition by Stuckist artists in a commercial London West End gallery. It was staged in Spectrum London gallery in October 2006. The show attracted media interest for its location, for the use of a painting satirising Sir Nicholas Serota, Director of the Tate gallery, and for two paintings of a stripper by Charles Thomson based on his former wife, artist Stella Vine.
Spectrum London was a London art gallery which showed contemporary figurative painting, photography and sculpture. It staged Go West, the first commercial West End show of the Stuckists, and a retrospective by Sebastian Horsley. It closed in 2008.
Sir Nicholas Serota Makes an Acquisitions Decision is one of the paintings that was made as a part of the Stuckism art movement, and is recognized as a "signature piece" for the movement, It was painted by the Stuckism co-founder Charles Thomson in 2000, and has been exhibited in a number of shows since, as well as being featured on placards during Stuckist demonstrations against the Turner Prize.
John Ronald Craigie Aitchison CBE RSA RA was a Scottish painter. He was best known for his many paintings of the Crucifixion, one of which hangs behind the altar in the chapter house of Liverpool Cathedral, Italian landscapes, and portraits. His simple style with bright, childlike colours defied description, and was compared to the Scottish Colourists, primitivists or naive artists, although Brian Sewell dismissed him as "a painter of too considered trifles".
Sarah Natasha Raphael was an English artist best known for her portraits and draughtsmanship.
Richard Ernst Eurich, OBE, RA was an English painter who worked as a war artist to the Admiralty in the Second World War and was also known for his panoramic seascapes and narrative paintings. These were often invested with a sense of mystery and wonder which have tended to set him apart from mainstream development of art in the twentieth century.
Richard Salter is a British artist who is currently serving with in the Royal Corps of Signals, British Army.