Biography

NICHOLAS BOTT (1941-2021)
Langley, BC

Nicholas Bott was born in the Netherlands in 1941 and was inspired by the works of the Dutch Masters at an early age. He settled in Canada in the late 1950s and fell in love with the landscape in and around Smithers, British Columbia. Nicholas passed away from cancer in May 2021.

Bott studied art at the University of British Columbia and holds a diploma from the Chicago School of Art. Inspired by the loose style of Vincent Van Gogh and the Canadian Group of Seven, Bott blends his traditional European values with contemporary developments of the new world. His paintings have continuosuly evolved into the impressionistic style of his current work through simplified shapes in the landscapes filled with vibrant colour. The brushwork radiates into powerful aesthetic compositions to communicate a sense of the sublime.

“Bott's works reveal not only an ever-growing confidence with the medium, but a growing sense of lyricism and visual poetry in the interpretation of his various subjects. His paintings show spontaneity and sureness of hand commensurate with his ability to distill and transform landscape and rural motifs into refined aesthetic visualizations. - Magazin Art, Fall 1999