Biography

Nicholas St.John Rosse was born in 1945 in Hampstead, London, and was educated at University College School. From an early age he became interested in painting, encouraged and enthused by watching the landscape painter Donald Towner at work in the open air and visiting his studio. On leaving school, a few months' employment  at Clifford Milburn ( Reeves )gave him the opportunity to become familiar with the work of Pietro Annigoni. Nicholas went to see him in Italy with a portfolio of drawings and three very beneficial years in Florence followed, as a student with the master and attending the Scuola Del Nudo of the Florence Academy

Nicholas has exhibited widely in one-man shows in London, the counties and abroad and also in numerous group exhibitions including the R.A., the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, the Royal West of England Academy and the Royal Society of Marine Artists. He is a regular contributor to various art magazines.

He has twice won the coveted Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award, and has works in their collection. This Montreal based foundation exists specially to encourage artists working in representational styles.

In 1981, Nicholas,  his wife Chantale and their two sons Alexandre and Sebastien moved to Trethevy on the North Cornish Coast where the wild cliffs and beaches provide the artist with endless settings for his figure/beach compositions. He is an active member of the St.Ives Society of Artists where he exhibits regularly.

It was during his stay in Spain that Nicholas started to draw and paint people on the beach, particularly children playing. This has become a favourite theme over the years and is perhaps best typified in a painting seen by a large number of people annually in the collection of Lord and Lady St. Levan on St. Michael’s Mount : two girls absorbed in play on Marazion Beach, the Mount in the background. Certainly the light, textures and sensations of the beach have featured in many of the artist’s paintings since his move to Cornwall.

In 1998, he was commissioned by Britannia Royal Naval College to paint a portrait of the late Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse now hanging in the Senior Gun Room with portraits of famous Admirals of the past. In the year 2000  Nicholas was once again commissioned to paint a portrait, that of Admiral Sir Henry Leach, which was  officially handed over to the College at the end of June that year. It is now also hanging in the Senior Gun Room where it can be seen on the days the College is open to the public.

 Nicholas has been attracted to another theatre of activity – The Eden Project. " I went when it first opened last year but was quite overwhelmed by the size and content of the place. I thought I would probably come away without drawing, , but then in the Tropical Biome my wife spotted a girl student sitting on some steps totally absorbed in painting a watercolour of hibiscus flowers, and there was my first subject ! I have been many times since and enjoy watching and painting little snippets from the procession of people round the great floral ‘cathedral’ ".          

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In the year of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, Nicholas  remembers his early training with Pietro Annigoni, the artist who painted arguably the most famous portrait of the Queen.

Nicholas with Annigoni in early 70s

" I remember when I first met Annigoni at his studio in the early 60’s. I had found his number in the local phone book and had asked if I could show him some of my drawings. He lived in a fairly ‘colourful’ quarter of Florence - Borgo degli Albizi. It was a rainy day in March and I stood on the pavement outside his studio soaked to the skin, portfolio under my arm. I rang the doorbell. His factotum answered on the intercom and summoned me up – an affable old man called Annibale (Hannibal). Up cold stone stairs smelling of herbs and turpentine, then into a large warm studio. At last, my chance to meet the Maestro! My dishevelled state didn’t seem to move him a great deal, but he looked at my drawings and he could see my enthusiasm. Yes, I could study in his studio but I would have to follow his strict ideas on the importance of drawing. I was also to attend Life Drawing at the Scuola del Nudo of the Florence Academy, and study anatomy. All exactly what I had wanted!

Annigoni was a generous man: he was also completely single-minded in his work and ideas. If he said you needed a month’s work on one drawing then that’s what you did. At times it was very hard, but the deep knowledge and experience gained has lasted to this day. The importance of rapid drawing from the model and the constant use of a sketchbook was  also instilled in us.

I did not work in the large warm studio, but up a flight of stairs in a draughty attic ‘cast’ studio with a little tin stove for warmth. There were two of us, and on cold winter mornings we would rummage around for odd bits of paper to start the fire. One day I found a large rather scruffy roll of paper in a corner - just right for the fire! I had second thoughts, however, when I unrolled it and saw the full- length preparatory drawing (cartoon) for the Queen’s famous 1955 portrait! A few days later I was asked by an indignant studio assistant not to burn any more of the Maestro’s drawings….

I drew, I painted, I learned at first hand about the preparation and use of traditional materials. Above all I watched Annigoni at work – portraits, landscapes, large-scale religious compositions, sculpture and lithographs. He combined a zest for life with a totally uncompromising dedication to his art - an attitude that has had a lasting influence on his students even though we have all developed different approaches to painting.

I later left Italy to work in Spain. On my return to England Annigoni sent me a telegram of best wishes for the opening of my first London one-man exhibition in 1968. I last saw the Maestro in his London studio in 1970 when he had just completed his second portrait of the Queen, now in the National Portrait Gallery.

I last wrote to him not long before he died in 1988. As a reply he sent me a book of his latest work"

Pietro_Annigoni

My teacher and influence in the early 1960s

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A great book

Here is a fascinating book by a long-time Student and friend of Annigoni, Dawn Cookson. My three years in Florence took place during her ten year period.

She writes in fond detail of her memories of the Maestro , of Florence and her friends and experiences there.

The book gives a unique insight into the life of the Annigoni Studio and is a must for anyone interested in his work.

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Early 1985

Portrait of E.V Thompson

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2006

Nicholas is still forging ahead with the Last Supper project for the St.Paul's Catholic church in Tintagel. It slow because of Nicholas's other commitments and commissions but he hopes to start on the main canvas in the next few weeks.

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2007

Nicholas has started on the main painting of the last supper and is pleased with the result so far.

Nicholas has this year taken the regrettable decision to resign from the St. Ives Society of Artists due to internal politics and goings on that has taken the fun out of belonging to it.

The Last Supper is at last finished it had its last strokes on the 23rd of December!

it was delivered at St.Paul's Catholic Church  Tintagel  on the 3rd of January 2008 where it is waiting to be hung. This project has given me great satisfaction and I am really pleased that it will be hung on time to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the church.

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2008