Dale Nichols was a Regionalist, a movement that included Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, and John Steuart Curry. Nichols was born on his parents’ farm in David City, Nebraska and grew up farming. At the age of 20, he moved to Illinois to study at the Chicago Academy of Fine Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, though his academic schooling was brief. He spent some time abroad before returning to Chicago, where he worked as an artist and illustrator.
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Nichols was an advocate for upgrading the quality of art in illustration and advertising. He published his first book, A Philosophy for Esthetics, in 1945. From 1930 to 1940, he served as the Carnegie visiting professor at the University of Illinois. Succeeding Grant Wood, he became the art editor for the Encyclopedia Britannica from 1942 to 1948. Through the 1940s he also painted covers for The Saturday Evening Post and Liberty, Christmas cards for the American Artist Group, and illustrations for commercial advertising. Painted in the center of the board with wide, unfinished margins (hidden by the frame), this original painting is likely an example of Nichols’ illustration work.
In 1948, Nichols moved to Arizona, where he established the Artist’s School in Tubac. He spent the remainder of his life traveling and painting, living in Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alaska, and Guatemala. In 1995, the year of his death, his art was featured on a series of United States Postal Service stamps.
Nichols’ paintings can be found in major collections around the U.S., including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri.