Biography
Nigel Ramsey Newton (b. 1903 - d. France 1976) was the son of the artist Algernon Newton (1880-1968). After a period working on his uncle’s ranch in British Columbia, Canada, Newton, whose younger brother was the actor Robert Newton, studied at St John’s Wood School of Art and Royal Academy Schools, 1922–3, with Charles Sims. Newton moved to France and then, after an unsuccessful marriage to a Belgian artist, to Ireland, where he gained commissions and painted with his friend R. O. Dunlop. There were further travels to America, where commissions included a painting of the Rockefeller family house in Pocantico Hills, Westchester County, and the West Indies. Back in England in the late 1930s West Indian canvases were bought by the High Commissioner for Canada, Vincent Massey, and his wife, Alice, who commissioned Newton to paint a son of theirs in his racing colours.
Newton also met his future wife (they married after World War II, in which Newton was in the drawing office of Bristol Aeroplane Company), Margot Hawley, whose artist father Denton Hawley and mother, who painted as Winifred Hardy, were members of groups of artists in Robin Hood’s Bay, Yorkshire, and Lamorna, Cornwall, including Ethel Walker and Dod Procter. In the 1940s Nigel and Margot bought Holworth Farm, Ozleworth, near Wotton-under-Edge, which remained his base for about 30 years, until sold to the writer Bruce Chatwin and his wife. Unlike his father, Newton used the direct method to produce landscapes, portraits and still lifes, which he showed at the RA Summer Exhibition, 1940–60, LG and RHA, although much work was sold privately. He finally lived at Yeolmbridge, Launceston, Cornwall, but died on a painting holiday in France.
