Erskine Nicol Biography

Erskine Nicol RSA ARA (1825-1904) was a Scottish figure and genre painter.

Nicol was born in Leith on 3 July 1825, the eldest son of James Main Nicol and his wife Margaret Alexander. His father rented a property on Lochend Road and worked in a wine merchant (Wauchope & Moodie) at 133 Constitution Street. The family moved to Fife Place on Leith Walk in the 1830s.

After an initial apprenticeship to a decorator, he turned to art. He was a student at the Trustees' Academy on Picardy Place in Edinburgh, where he studied with Sir William Allan and Thomas Duncan. On qualifying, he initially taught as an Art Master at the old Leith High School.

Nicol taught in Dublin, Ireland, from 1845 to 1850, at the height of the Irish famine, and identified with the oppression of the Irish people. Much of his work portrays the injustices inflicted upon the Irish population during the 19th century, as well as everyday Irish life.

In 1850, he moved back to Edinburgh. He lived at 1 Blenheim Place, a fine Georgian flat at the top of Leith Walk. He was made an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1851 and an Academician in 1859.

Nicol exhibited at the Royal Academy and was made an associate of the Royal Academy in 1866. He also exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy and the British Institution.

In 1862 he left Edinburgh and moved to St John's Wood in London, then in 1864 moved to 24 Dawson Place in west London. He also purchased a studio in Clonava in County Westmeath in Ireland and enjoyed finishing canvases there until ill-health forced him to curtail his travelling. He thereafter used a disused church in Pitlochry to complete his works.

He died at The Dell, Feltham in Middlesex, on 8 March 1904. He is buried with his second wife in Rottingdean.