Joseph Nickolls Biography
JOSEPH NICKOLLS
Fl. 1726 - 1755
Despite his sophistication as a topographical painter, nothing is known of Joseph Nickolls’s life. He specialised in London views and also worked as an illustrator, for example illustrating Captain Charles Johnson’s General History of the Lives and Adventures of the most Famous Highwaymen, Murderers, etc. (1734).
Nickolls was producing subtle views of London, with delicately-painted figures, at least a decade before the arrival of Canaletto in England in 1746. A pair of paintings of The fountain in the Middle Temple (signed and dated 1738; collection of the Middle Temple) and The Stocks Market were engraved in 1738. A view of St James’s Park and the Mall, circa 1745 (Royal Collection) has also recently been attributed to Nickolls (see London, Tate Gallery, Manners and Morals: Hogarth and British Painting 1700-1760, ed. E Einberg, pp.130-133). In 1746 Nickolls painted A view of Charing Cross and Northumberland House (National Westminster Bank plc). Nickolls’s painting of Pope’s Villa, Twickenham is in the Paul Mellon Collection.