Job Nixon (1891-1938) was skilled in oil and watercolour painting, but is remembered principally for his expertise in etching and engraving. He studied at the Royal College of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art before winning the Rome Scholarship in Engraving that entitled him to a three-year stay at the British School at Rome, which he took up from 1920 to 1923.

While in Italy, he stayed with his fellow scholars Colin Gill, Jack Benson, and Winifred Knights at Anticoli Corrado, a hill village in Lazio, which had a long-standing connection to the artists of Rome thanks to its picturesque scenery. Several engravings of the time show his appreciation for the village’s dramatic placement as it was set into the Italian hillside. The records that he left at the BSR show also his appreciation for the Italian people, with sketches and engravings portraying love and life in Italy’s towns and countryside, including a studious and detailed engraving of a busy restaurant. His later works show how he carried this experience with him, with further etchings, engravings, and drypoints showing Rome, Florence, and Subiaco, and others from visits to France. His works also reveal his connection to other artists also studying in Rome at the BSR. One engraving of the Temple of Venus and Roma in Rome, for example, depicts Winifred Knights sketching the world around her. Nixon is similarly noted to have served as a model for her.

Following his stay in Rome, he taught at the Engraving School at the Royal College of Art, before transitioning into watercolours. He became a member of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1928 and exhibited with them frequently. Though these reflected his training in engraving, some were particularly well-received. He moved to St Ives for a spell, briefly running a painting school, before returning to London to teach at the Slade in 1935. He died soon after in 1938 at 47. During his lifetime he was prolific in his work, and his paintings and engravings are now widely distributed across a number of art galleries and public collections.

Where would you like to go next? Who would you like to meet?

Explore the Job Nixon Collection in the BSR Fine Arts Archive
Visit Anticoli Corrado
Meet Winifred Knights(1899-1947)
Meet Colin Gill (1892-1940)
Learn more about Engraving at the BSR, 1913-1930

Sources and further reading:

Modern British Art Gallery / LissLlewellyn / Meisterdrucke / TrentArt / ArtUK / British Council – Visual Arts / Manchester Art Gallery / The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art / Auckland Art Gallery/Toi o Tamaki / NGV

For a full bibliography and further reading, see here.

Share this;