Born in England, Nickson attended the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts and the Royal College of Art in London, earning an M.F.A. in 1972. He was based in Italy from 1972-74, but spent the majority of his life in New York City. He worked, traveled, exhibited and taught extensively throughout the United States and abroad, receiving various prestigious awards including the Prix de Rome, the Harkness Fellowship at Yale University, the Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Ingram Merrill Fellowship. His work is in the permanent collections of various institutions in New York including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and The Albright Knox Gallery, as well as The National Gallery in Washington, D.C., The Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University in Massachusetts, the Boca Raton Museum of Art in Florida, and Adelaide Central Gallery, Australia. Graham Nickson was a faculty member and Dean of the New York Studio School beginning in 1988, and originated the internationally renowned “Drawing Marathon.”