NICE, Derek

1933 - 2021

Derek Vernon Nice was born in Hendon, North London in 1933, son of Leonard Robert Nice (8 March 1906-1994) and his wife Emily E. née Hunt (1906-1960), who married at Uxbridge, West London in 1930. Derek studied painting and ceramics at Southend Art School followed by a post-graduate design year at the Central School in London. A designer for the BBC, Associated British Cinemas and Associated British Pathé 1960-1970 and from 1970 when living at 55 Woodbridge Road, Ipswich, taught at Ipswich School of Art but filed his petition in bankruptcy in 1975 when living at 19 Buckingham Avenue Leeds. In 1980 he moved to Devon, teaching at Torquay School of Art, and then returned to work for the BBC in both Bristol and London. From 1980 he also designed for films and interactive museum projects including designing the 'Trafalgar Story' at Portsmouth, a replica Viking long ship in Oslo and at Gozo Heritage Museum, Malta. Expressing his love of nautical history with boat-centred sculpture and painting, the first models recalled the 'Belle' steamers which once ferried passengers between Tower Bridge and Yarmouth and most piers in-between. He especially loved the surreal winch or boat parcels, wrapped in tarpaulin, striped awning or plastic sheets, at Pakefield, Suffolk and has painted fishermen's haunts from Blakeney in Norfolk to Aldeburgh in Suffolk. Fishing craft then gave way to images drawn from vessels painted on pyramid interiors or scratched on rocks in the Nubian desert. He married in 1996, textile artist Mary Pasmore, daughter of artists Edwin John Victor Pasmore (1908-1998) and Wendy Lloyd Pasmore née Blood (1915-2015). In 2010 Derek had a studio in Chediston Street, Halesworth, Suffolk and has had a solo exhibition at Aldeburgh's Cinema Gallery but since 2016 has lived at Wells, Somerset and exhibits at the Adnelli Gallery in Wells and has exhibited widely including at Messum Fine Art in London; Victoria Art Gallery Bath and Sladers Yard, West Bay, Bridport, Dorset. Derek Nice died in Somerset in 2021.

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Works by This Artist