Timaru landscape led to painter’s spy accusation

Archibald Nicoll is one of New Zealand’s most noted portrait and landscape artists of the early 20th century.

He was born to a farming family in Lincoln, and worked for a shipping company as a young man. However, he was committed to a career as an artist, and took evening classes at the Canterbury College of Art after work. Upon gaining his qualifications, Nicoll was offered a teaching position at Elam in Auckland where he spent several years before moving to Britain to further his education.

In both Edinburgh and London, Nicoll gained critical recognition and won several painting prizes, which allowed him to travel to Europe. While the influence of this extensive education makes itself felt in the technical sophistication of Nicoll’s work, the cultural influence of his travels is also clear in his plein-air approach and preference for familiar, everyday subjects.

The outbreak of World War I saw Nicoll put his art career on hold and take up arms as a serviceman in the New Zealand army. Sadly, he was severely injured during the Battle of the Somme, and his leg was amputated as a result.

Nicoll returned to New Zealand, where he served as director of the Canterbury College of Art from 1920-28, and later, as a teacher from 1938 to 1945. Through these two positions, Nicoll was able to share the insights he had gained prior to the war with the emerging artists he taught, including Rita Angus and Bill Sutton. Nicoll’s interest in local scenes and strong eye for light and shadow can be seen in the preferred – and now iconic – style of the New Zealand regionalist painters and which Harbour Installations (pictured above) is an example.

Harbour Installations dates to the 1940s towards the end of Nicoll’s life and during the height of World War II. An inscription on the back details a story about the work’s conception.

Nicoll was apparently interrupted while painting the work by a passing police officer, who asked him what he was doing. On suspicion of enemy spy activity, the police officer asked Nicoll to escort him to station to explain himself. The fact was, the artist was just interested in capturing the Timaru landscape directly from life, in the style of his European contemporaries and had been a regular visitor to Timaru since the 1920s.