Roy Vincent MacNicol

Roy Vincent MacNicol was born in New York City in 1889. He was an individual of many talents and began his studies at the University of Illinois. By the late teens, he had returned to in New York City and became an actor on Broadway as well as an established, successful artist. During his lifetime MacNicol had 59 solo exhibitions, including a one-man show at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1926. MacNicol is best known as a watercolorist and for his elaborately painted decorative screens. He was represented by Milch Galleries in New York, one of the prominent venues for contemporary American painting at the time. In 1943, MacNicol had a prestigious one-man exhibition at the Pan American Union in Washington, D.C. This event was sponsored by Eleanor Roosevelt. MacNicol completed murals for the Moore-McCormack Steamship Line. He often traveled to Mexico and Cuba in the 1940s and '50s, and these the subjects often became the source for his artwork.

In his lifetime, MacNicol's work was acquired by The University of Illinois and the University of Havana. He authored two books, an autobiography titled “Paint Brush Ambassador” and a second titled “The Flame of Genius” on the artist El Greco. MacNicol also frequently contributed articles to the Christian Science Monitor. He died at the age of 81 in New York City in 1970.