Edinburgh-born Deirdre Nicholls' latest exhibition opens in Oxford at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre on 12 May 2019 and runs until early July 2019. These landscape works stem from a 3-month residency in Villefranche-sur-Mer on the French Riviera, where the light and warmth had similarly influenced the great Scottish Colourist at the turn of the last century.
A portrait sculptor and landscape painter, Deirdre Nicholls' most notable work to date is a large bronze bust of Nelson Mandela
(https://vimeo.com/113485442 ) Commissioned by Glasgow City Council; this work is on permanent display in Glasgow’s City Chambers.
Daughter of a sculptor and stonemason, Deirdre’s training in Sculpture and Printmaking took place under Arthur Ballard at Liverpool and William Crozier at Winchester Schools of Art in the 1970’s, when Norman Ackroyd taught etching and Patrick Heron ran his celebrated colour courses.
Deirdre’s work is best described as ‘Old School”. She specialises in figurative work, landscape painting, and creating portraits in bronze. Her portraits are renowned for their human touch and Deirdre’s work is in public and private collections in the UK, the US and France. The University of Edinburgh has several busts by Nicholls, and copies of her portrait of Robert Burns are in the private collection of Frank Shaw, former Chair of the Burns Club of Atlanta, Georgia, and of Prof. David Purdie, Chairman of the Edinburgh Burns Club.
‘I seek to capture the essence of the sitter in my portrait sculpture work – I like the piece to look different from various angles according to the changes of light, or the viewer’s mood. For my landscape paintings, I look for colour, warmth and light’.
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Deirdre Nicholls