Nicholas Treadwell

Nicholas Treadwell (born 1937) owns the Nicholas Treadwell Gallery, which started in 1963 in touring vehicles, after which it was run in buildings in London, Bradford and finally Austria. Treadwell has promoted the Superhumanism art movement, which is defined as an art of urban living, conveyed in a vivid and accessible way. At times, his shows have evoked strong reactions for their provocative content. Since 2016 Treadwell lives and works as a gallerist in Vienna's Wieden district.

Nicholas Treadwell was born in the United Kingdom. In 1963, he toured England with a double-decker bus and two furniture vans as mobile galleries, as "Nicholas Treadwell's Mobile Art Gallery", based in Croydon.

In 1968, he established the Nicholas Treadwell Gallery at 36 Chiltern Street, in the West End of London, and lived in one of the rooms in the basement. Against the contemporary trend of Hard-edge abstraction and Minimalism, the gallery focused on "the basic nature of the human condition", and quickly gained a controversial reputation. In 1971, Art and Artist magazine said of one show: "The place blisters with work of searing eroticism, high camp, coarse belly laughs and hideous vulgarity".

In 1975, Treadwell asked 29 artists to submit a new approach to what he termed the normal "academic and dull" portraits of Queen Elizabeth. The results showed her hand-in-hand with Henry VIII, rowing a boat and drinking from a Union Jack mug. Treadwell said that business with tourists had been good, but he did not invite the Queen to the show, because "I see them as very affectionate portraits, but I don't know how she would see them".

In 1978, he acquired Denne Hill, a mansion with 52 rooms, designed by George Devey and built in 1871–75, in Womenswold between Canterbury and Dover; restoration took two years but it was opened to the public in July 1980. Denne Hill provided studios for artists and accommodation for visitors; Treadwell ran it alongside the London gallery until 1984.

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