| Nikola Aleksić | |
| Birth Date: | 1 January 1808 |
| Birth Place: | Stari Bečej, Austrian Empire |
| Death Place: | Arad, Austria-Hungary |
| Nationality: | Serbian |
| Style: | Icon artist in the style of Nazarene movement, Biedermeier |
Nikola Aleksić (1808 – 1 January 1873) was a Serbian artist. He was under the influence of the painting styles of the Nazarene movement and Biedermeier.[1]
He came from a family of artists in Stari Bečej. He was taught painting at the studio of Arsenije Teodorović of Novi Sad until 1826. Then, he went to Vienna and enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts (1828–1830).
Later, he traveled to Italy to broaden his art education. There he honed his craft for three years, getting to know the art of the Nazarene movement, and making a living from portrait painting. He also copied old masters in the city's galleries and painted portraits of Austrian officers of Serbian descent. In 1834 he left Italy for Novi Sad, then he went to Sremski Karlovci, where he made a portrait of Metropolitan Stefan Stratimirović.
After three years of working in the Principality of Serbia, he was drawn back to his childhood haunts. In 1837, he settled in Kikinda, where he opened his own atelier. From there he moved to Timișoara in 1840 and later settled in Arad, where his relatives lived and where spent the rest of his life. Artists Novak Radonić and Aksentije Marodić were his apprentices. In Timișoara, he married Marija Stankić, a beautiful Serbian woman from Verona. Nikola's successors, son Dušan and his two grandsons Stevan and Ivan were also prominent painters.[2]
He is considered the most productive Serbian painter in the first half of the nineteenth century. He did approximately a thousand icons and many neo-classicistic portraits. Among his first religious works are the icons in the iconostasis and the vault of the Serbian church in Mol and the iconostasis in the Romanian church in Fibiş, near Temisvar (1837–1838).