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Nicolas Granger-Taylor was born in London in 1963. He was educated at Latymer UpperSchool, Hammersmith, and began his art training at Kingston Polytechnic, followed by a three-year degree course in Fine Art at Bristol Polytechnic, the only time he has lived away from London. It was toward the end of his first year at Bristol that he recognised that painting was what most inspired him, and chiefly painting from life. His final-year show mainly consisted of large figure studies taken directly from life, the principal subjects being solitary women in interiors, with particular attention to light and form. His course was thus set. Apart from some excursions into more imaginatively-based figure compositions in the following years, by late 1989 - at the start of his final year at the Royal Academy Schools – he was painting exclusively from life, with work on individual pieces ranging over several days, weeks or months.
This working pattern remains today, Nicolas alternating sessions with models and visitors for portrait commissions with his work on still lifes. Finding a subject that appeals to him, Nicolas will spend some time honing the arrangement of the subject and the composition of the picture before commencing to paint. He works in oils, mainly using sable brushes, on fine linen canvas which is sometimes stretched over board. The paintings have been called “cabinet pictures” – relatively small in size, they are intimate pieces that are nonetheless powerful, charged from the artist’s passion for his work, his relatedness with the subject, and the hours of focused observation.
Solo Exhibitions
1988 Cadogan Contemporary, London
1991 Waterman Fine Art, London
1993 Waterman Fine Art, London
1999 Offer Waterman & Co, London
2003 Offer Waterman & Co, London
2011 Jonathan Cooper, London
2013 Jonathan Cooper, London
2014 Robert Eagle Fine Art, London
Selected Group Exhibitions
1986 The South Bank Picture Show, Royal Festival Hall, London
1987 John Player Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London
1987 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London
1987 The South Bank Picture Show, Royal Festival Hall, London
1988 The South Bank Picture Show, Royal Festival Hall, London
1989 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London
1990 B.P. Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London
1991 The NatWest 90’s Prize for Art, NatWest Tower, London
1992 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London
1992 The Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London
1995 B.P. Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London
1996 Small Interiors, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
2005 Christmas Show, Browse and Darby, London
2006 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London
2008 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London
2008 The Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London
2009 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London
2010 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London
2014 The New English Art Club Annual Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London
2015 Differently British, Robert Eagle Fine Art, Burgh House, London
2015 The Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London
Selected Awards
1987 John Player Portrait Award, Special Commendation
1990 Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award
1990 Richard Ford Award
1999 Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award
Selected public, institutional and private collections
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Latymer Upper School, Hammersmith (portrait commission)
Luton University (portrait commission)
NatWest
New College, Oxford
The 2nd Royal Tank Regiment (portrait commission)
The Duke of Devonshire
The late Sir Brinsley Ford
The late Sir Alec Guinness CH, CBE
Barry Humphries CBE
The Steve Martin Collection, USA
Greta Scacchi OMRI
1981-82 Foundation Studies, Kingston Polytechnic
1982-85 BA (Hons) Degree in Fine Art, Bristol Polytechnic
1987-90 Postgraduate Diploma in Painting, Royal Academy Schools, London
Karin Jonzen, Nicolas Granger-Taylor, catalogue introduction, Cadogan Contemporary, 1988
Iain Gale, Nicolas Granger-Taylor, catalogue introduction, Waterman Fine Art, 1991
Nicholas Usherwood, “Preview”, RA Magazine, Number 33, Winter 1991, p. 19
Giles Auty, “Ample figures”, The Spectator, 9 November 1991, pp. 63-64
Mary Rose Beaumont, “Nicolas Granger-Taylor”, Arts Review, 15 November 1991, p.580
Rory Snookes, “Nicolas Granger-Taylor”, Apollo, February 1992, p. 128
Felicity Owen, “Brushes with youthful talent”, Country Life, 4 February 1993, pp. 30-33
Robin Simon, Nicolas Granger-Taylor, catalogue introduction, Waterman Fine Art, 1993
Mary Rose Beaumont, “Nicolas Granger-Taylor”, Art Review, May 1993, p. 86
Giles Auty, “Do I see lemons?” The Spectator, 15 May 1993, p. 46
Julian Halsby, “In Conversation”, The Artist, May 1993, pp. 10-12
Helen Gould, “Back to Life”, Artists and Illustrators, November 1997, pp. 30-33
Nicholas Usherwood, Nicolas Granger-Taylor: A Retrospective, catalogue introduction, Offer Waterman, 1999
Nicolas Granger-Taylor, Nicolas Granger-Taylor: Recent Work, catalogue introduction, Offer Waterman, 2003
Andrew Devonshire, Accidents of Fortune, Michael Russell Ltd, 2004, p. 115 & colour plate
Nicolas Granger-Taylor, “Some Thoughts on Recovery and Creativity”, The Jackdaw, Sept/Oct 2011, p. 23
Barry Humphries CBE, Nicolas Granger-Taylor: Recent Work, catalogue introduction, Jonathan Cooper, 2011
Greta Scacchi, Nicolas Granger-Taylor: Recent Paintings and Drawings, online-catalogue introduction, Jonathan Cooper, 2013
Susan Heywood, “Composure and Complicity in Contained Spaces” (solo exhibition review), Platform505 website, 31 October 2013
