Jack Nichols
A.R.C.A., O.S.A. (1921-2009) – Artist Biography
Born in Montreal in 1921, Jack Nichols was orphaned as a child and, consequently, wasn’t able to afford an education. He made his way working at a variety of jobs that also allowed him time to develop his skills as an artist, such as manning cargo boats along the Great Lakes. During these early years Nichols was influenced and encouraged by artists Louis Muhlstock and F.H. Varley. He joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1940 and, four years later, was appointed an official war artist. He arrived overseas in time to cross the English Channel on D-Day. He remained in Normandy until the fall of Caen and then returned to London to develop his drawing. The impact that the war had on him is clear in his art, which is often melancholy and haunting. Following the war, Nichols won a Guggenheim fellowship for painting. This allowed him to travel and paint in the United States for a year. He spent most of the time in the studios of printmakers where he proved his talents as an artist and printmaker. In 1948 Nichols went on to teach at the Vancouver School of Art. Shortly thereafter he went on to be a prizewinner at the Second International Exhibition of Drawing and Engraving in Lugano, Switzerland, and then on to display at the Venice Biennale. He has had exhibitions at the Ellen Gallery and the McCord Museum in Montreal, the MacKenzie Gallery in Saskatchewan, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Canadian War Records Collection in Ottawa and the Canadian War Museum, which owns forty-three of his works.
