Nicholas Charles Williams (born 961], English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 painter and draughtsman.

Williams' work draws upon aspects of human behavior — its drives and forces - conveyed through allegory and direct observational painting.

Solo shows include the Russell-Cotes Museum, Bournemouth, Royal Cornwall Museum

Royal Cornwall Museum

The Royal Cornwall Museum is a museum in the city of Truro, Cornwall, England. It is the oldest museum in Cornwall and the leading museum of Cornish culture. Its exhibits include minerals, an unwrapped mummy and objects relating to Cornwall’s unique culture...

, Truro and Liverpool Cathedral

Liverpool Cathedral

Liverpool Cathedral is the Church of England cathedral of the Diocese of Liverpool, built on St James's Mount in Liverpool and is the seat of the Bishop of Liverpool. Its official name is the Cathedral Church of Christ in Liverpool but it is dedicated to Christ and the Blessed Virgin...

 for European Capital of Culture

European Capital of Culture

The European Capital of Culture is a city designated by theEuropean Union for a period of one calendar year during which it organises a series of cultural events with a strong European dimension....

 2008. In 2001 he was awarded the Hunting Art Prize and in 2008 shortlisted for the Threadneedle Figurative Prize.

Hockney–Falco thesis
Two paintings by Williams made for scientific analysis examining David Hockney

David Hockney

David Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....

'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

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

; The Venice Biennale

Venice Biennale

The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...

; The Louvre; National Gallery, London

National Gallery, London

The National Gallery is an art museum on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media...

; Kunsthistorisches Museum

Kunsthistorisches Museum

The Kunsthistorisches Museum is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on Ringstraße, it is crowned with an octagonal dome...

, Vienna; de Young Museum, San Francisco; Oxford University; Cambridge University; Stanford University; Getty Research Institute

Getty Research Institute

The Getty Research Institute , located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, is "dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts". A program of the J...

; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Williams lives and works in Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

, South West England. His studio is a former lifeboat station on the North coast.

Selected quotes

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.”

Ian Dejardin

Ian Dejardin

Ian A.C. Dejardin is an art historian and Director of the Dulwich Picture Gallery in Dulwich, southeast London, England. He succeeded Desmond Shawe-Taylor as Director in 2005 and was previously a Chief Curator at the Gallery from 1998....

, Director, Dulwich Picture Gallery

Dulwich Picture Gallery

Dulwich Picture Gallery is an art gallery in Dulwich, South London. England's first purpose-built public art gallery, it was designed by Regency architect Sir John Soane and opened to the public in 1817. Soane arranged the exhibition spaces as a series of interlinked rooms illuminated naturally...

: "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."

Brian Sewell

Brian Sewell

Brian Sewell is an English art critic and media personality. He writes for the London Evening Standard and is noted for artistic conservatism and his acerbic view of the Turner Prize and conceptual art...

, art critic: "The quality of the painting seemed to me astounding"

Mark Bills, Curator of Paintings Prints & Drawings, Museum of London

Museum of London

The Museum of London documents the history of London from the Prehistoric to the present day. The museum is located close to the Barbican Centre, as part of the striking Barbican complex of buildings created in the 1960s and 70s as an innovative approach to re-development within a bomb damaged...

: "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."

Collections

• British Museum
  British Museum
  The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
  
  
• Bournemouth Central Public Library
• Bluestone Design, Plymouth
• Hunting PLC, London

Selected bibliography

• 1995 Daily Telegraph, Mail on Sunday, Sunday Express
• 2001 Art Review, London Evening Standard, Financial Times, Galleries
• 2003 Daily Telegraph, Hunting Art Prizes 25th Anniversary Catalogue: William Packer
• 2004 New York Times, Sunday Herald, Scotland
• 2006 Madame Figaro Voyage Japon

External links

• Nicholas Charles Williams website