Spencer Baird Nichols' childhood was spent in Washington, D.C. where he attended the Corcoran School of Art and the Washington Art Students' League. At the Corcoran he studied under Howard Helmick, a student of James McNeill Whistler. At the age of 17, he was appointed an Instructor of Illustration at the Art Students' League.

His father, Henry Hobart Nichols, was an eminent wood engraver who won a gold medal at the 1876 Centennial Exhibit in Philadelphia.

Spencer worked for the Geological Survey and the National Museum. A portrait of Andrew Stephenson, Speaker of the House, by him, hangs in the Speaker's Lobby of the House of Representatives.

For a number of years until World War I, he wa...