Children of the Sun (1944)
Oil on canvas, 26" x 40"
Painter Dale Nichols was celebrated as part of the Regionalist movement, following Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, and John Steuart Curry. His philosophical musings and extensive travels, however, mark his work as transcending the boundaries of the genre. His rural landscapes, created throughout his career, were deeply inspired by his childhood. Born in 1904 in David City, Nebraska, he became one of the best-known painters from the state.
Nichols lived on his family’s farm until the age of twenty, when he left to learn his artistic craft at the Chicago Academy of Fine Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and with Austrian designer Joseph Binder. He spent fifteen years working for prominent design firms in Chicago, and began to focus on his fine art career in 1934. His efforts in landscape painting were quickly rewarded. In the 1930s he exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Carnegie Institute, and Macbeth Galleries, New York, and as at the World’s Fairs held in Chicago, New York, and San Francisco. He was awarded the William Randolph Hearst Prize from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1935.
Working from memory, Nichols recreated his childhood affinity for the Nebraskan landscape during his persistent travels. Though opposed to European modernism, he moved past the confines of traditional academic painting by creating surreal and imaginative works. Nichols was interested in Freudian concepts, and explored his spiritual beliefs through imagery of the natural world, especially the theme of the sun. His influence extended through his post as the first Carnegie Visiting Professor at the University of Illinois for 1939 and 1940. In 1942, he replaced Grant Wood as the art editor for the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Nichols labored to open a short-lived art school in Tubac, Arizona, which attracted students pursuing an art education under the G.I Bill. He then traveled extensively in Mexico, Minnesota, Nebraska, and New Orleans. He settled in Antigua, Guatemala for sixteen years, and took a scholarly interest in Mayan carvings. His wanderlust continued through the 1980s upon his return to states, and he died in Sedona, Arizona in 1995. His later years were spent writing essays, anecdotes, and art lessons. These papers revealed his deep philosophical concerns, and interests in symbolism, metaphor, and the power of desire.
Written by Zenobia Grant Wingate
