William Hart McNichols
William Hart McNichols has been “drawing and coloring in his room” since he was five years old. He was a member of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) from 1968 to 2002. He studied philosophy, theology and art at St. Louis University, Boston College, Boston University and Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, Mass. Father Bill furthered his art studies at California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland in 1977. He was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in Denver on May 25, 1979. In 1983 he received an MFA in landscape painting from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y. From 1983 to 1990 he worked with the AIDS Hospice team of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan, N.Y. During that time, he also illustrated twenty-five books, mostly children’s books, for the Paulist Press. In 1990, he moved to Albuquerque, N.M. to study the technique, history and spirituality of icon painting with Russian-American master painter Robert Lentz. Father Bill also assists with sacramental ministry in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, N.M. In 2007, Father Bill began to work on the Publication Ministry of the Icons. In 2008 to 2009 his first icon exhibit, Silence of the Storm: Icons and Images, featuring twenty-six originals, was shown at the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos, N.M. Currently several originals and many reproductions of his work are on exhibit at Solstice Gallery in Taos, N.M.
