A Portrait of Nall by Rob Johnston
A portrait of Nall by Rob Johnston called "Facelift" because Nall was joking about aging (Image courtesy of the International Arts Center)
I will do my best to paint a portrait of Nall—the man who took me under his wing as a father-like figure, taught me to see the world differently and how to love and live life to its fullest.
I met Nall around 1996 when I was 16 years old. It was at one of his art shows in Guntersville, Alabama. He signed a copy of his Alice inWonderland books for me in his grandiose artistic fashion. As we talked and I told him that I was an aspiring artist myself, he invited me to come apprentice with him in Vence, France.
A portrait of Nall (Far Right) and Rob Johnston (Left of Nall) along with two other apprentices (Image Courtesy of Rob Johnston)
As a kid growing up in Cullman, Alabama without much other opportunity to experience different cultures and see the world, this offer stuck with me. So just shy of my 20th birthday, in the spring of 2000, I took him up on his offer.
The next several years were spent in Vence working very closely with him day in and day out. I started out as his apprentice, and then realizing I had a knack for it, I became his studio assistant. As the ‘chef des apprentis’, my job included teaching the new apprentices Nall’s various framing techniques, make sure that everything in the studio ran smoothly, entertain guests and talk up Nall’s work to potential buyers during art shows.
Rob Johnston carrying two artworks by Nall (Image Courtesy of The Nall Institute LLC. In Fairhope)
The 2000s were the peak of Nall’s artistic success and represented some of his most monumental projects. It was a pretty wild ride! One of the things that was most striking about Nall was how prolific he was. Possessing an extraordinary artistic talent, he was capable of cranking out beautiful works of art in a single morning or afternoon. I recall one time, upon finishing a watercolor landscape at the Governor’s mansion in Alabama, he jokingly turned to the staff and said ‘I’ve just paid my electricity bill!’
He seemed almost possessed with the spirit of creation and a mind always bubbling with ideas. Even on important phone calls he’d be doodling something. At that time, I estimated that he was generating about a half a million dollars’ worth of art each year. And yet, he made it look so easy.
I can still picture him in the loft of his studio, listening to music on the radio, whistling along in a high tone with lots of vibrato, the occasional tinkling sound of a watercolor paintbrush in a glass and an occasional grunt of satisfaction when he saw something that caught his eye.
Nall whimsically working on an artwork (Image courtesy of The Nall Institute LLC. in Fairhope)
He loved his dogs, many rescues from the SPCA. On his nine-acre estate in Vence lived 11 dogs and one terrified cat. He was always doing voice-overs for his dogs in a raspy, high pitched tone and southern accent, giving them voice to something they might say. He also had an alter ego, which he named Ferrari that lived in his head and had a voice a bit like Donald Duck. It was hilarious whenever Ferrari would speak up and hear Nall have a dialogue between himself and his dogs and/or imagined alter ego. He portrayed Ferrari as a king of simpleton. I can still hear him saying ‘Ferrari,...hush’!
He would wake up at the crack of dawn and waste no time going for a walk with his favorite dogs, speed walking at a pace that was hard for an ‘average’ person to keep up and then returning home to make breakfast.The dishes would be done simultaneously in accordance with his philosophy that ‘we should leave no dirty dishes in the sink’. This was indicative of his approach to life—why put off until later what you can do right now?
When the apprentices arrived in the morning, he would have them do about half an hour of stretches, yoga and ballet exercises to ward off ‘lethargy’ as he called it. He couldn’t stand the thought of wasting time or energy and always said we should ‘move forward, not back’.
Robert Johnston
Former Apprentice
Artist, Musician