He was among the founding members of the Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in 1826, and was its first secretary.

[1] When he left school, he studied painting under the Italian painter Boniface Muss (or Musso) in Newcastle.

[1] With the architect Thomas Hamilton, Nicholson was among the founding members of the Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in 1826, and from that year until 1830 was its first secretary.

[1] In 1818, Nicholson began publishing his Portraits of Distinguished Living Characters of Scotland, a series of etchings based on his own paintings and those of other artists; it was not completed.

His subjects included Sir William Allan, James Hogg (the "Ettrick Shepherd"), Lord Jeffrey, Professor John Playfair, Sir Walter Scott, George Thomson, James Watt and John Wilson; there were also etchings of a portrait of Robert Burns by Alexander Nasmyth and of a self-portrait by Sir Henry Raeburn.