Born in Leipzig, Germany, Nessler began his artistic career at the Castelli Italian School of Art, Dresden. Despite not being Jewish, he strongly opposed National Socialism, and eventually moved to London in 1937, joining the British army shortly thereafter. After the war, he studied sculpture at St Martin's School of Art and travelled to Paris, meeting the likes of Cocteau, Sartre, Picasso, Giacometti and Matisse. French modernism, particularly Cubism, exerted a strong influence on his subsequent work. The bright colours and geometric planes used to depict the landscape surrounding Jersey, the subject of numerous works in the early 1950s, reveals the artist's optimistic post-war outlook. Nessler first exhibited his work...