I was born in Portsmouth in the UK. Although I painted throughout my teens at school under the guidance of my art teacher, the Scottish artist Nell Todd, and then at Cambridge University where I exhibited at King’s College and Kettle’s Yard, I actually had a scientific education. After graduation I considered training as an artist at a UK art school, but instead decided to go to France where I learned to draw at the Paris municipal art school in the Place des Vosges and completed my artistic education with the inspiring instruction on artists’ materials from Nicolas Wacker at the École des Beaux-Arts. I also worked for two years under the critical eye of the lyrical abstract artist Zao-Wou Ki at the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. I became a professional artist in 1982 and worked in Paris until 2004, when I moved to Sicily. I now live and work in Palermo.

I have mainly exhibited my work in Paris, where I have had ten solo shows, and I have also had solo shows in Rome, Toulouse, and Verona. I have participated in numerous group exhibitions, mainly in France. My work features in several public collections, including that of Air France Industries and the Mairie de Vitry-Châtillon, and has also been chosen for several book covers — including, in 2015, a book of poems by Kim Moore entitled The Art of Falling and a Cambridge University Press textbook titled Health and Physical Education.

Explore Another Side of My Art

In addition to the moving figure paintings shown here, I also create traditional gouache paintings. You can discover this very different but equally important side of my practice by visiting nicholasstedmangouache.com – my gouache painting site.