Francis Nicholson was born in Pickering, Yorkshire, but lived in Whitby, Knaresborough and Ripon, before moving to London in around 1803. After studying under local artists in Yorkshire, he spent some 30 years painting portraits and animals, mainly in oil. However, from the mid-1780 he turned to watercolour, sending his watercolour landscapes to Royal Academy exhibitions from 1789 and supplying topographical views to ‘Copper Plate Magazine’. He experimented with different methods and processes of watercolour painting and published ‘The Practice of Drawing and Painting Landscapes from Nature in Watercolour’ (1820). Nicholson was also a popular teacher. In 1804 he became a founder-member of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours.
