Ian Nathan
Ian Nathan was born in 1954 and spent his formative years in the beautiful Devon town of Teignmouth where his ancestors had lived and worked as fisherman and lifeboat men. He showed an ability to paint and draw from an early age, but other pastimes such as boxing and dancing took over for several years. In 1969 he joined the Royal Ballet in London where he trained for four years. He had the experience of dancing at Covent Garden and watched at close quarters one of the most famous dance partnerships of all time, Fonteyn and Nureyev.Realising that the ballet world was not for him, he returned to Teignmouth and began as a labourer on the local docks. Several more jobs followed, including boat building and work on the roads. Later he began a Graphic Design course, but left after two years to pursue a full-time painting career. Local exhibitions were a sell-out and soon he was showing his work in London’s best galleries. He eventually joined the Halcyon Gallery in 1990 and had his first one man show where almost every picture was sold within the first hour. Since then he has gone on to become one of the finest artists in the country, painting not only wildlife, but also recording the lives of local fisherman as they spend their days sorting mussels and oysters on the beach, a stones throw from his studio.