Nigel Boonham is a British portrait sculptor whose work dates back to 1975. He learnt traditional skills and was trained in the making of large-scale portraits as assistant for two years (1977-79) to the sculptor Oscar Nemon. While working on his first portrait Boonham was introduced to the work of the poet and artist, William Blake. Blake's free imagination and symbolic language have been an inspiration ever since and helped Boonham develop on the idea that sculpture, including portraiture, can have inner life and meaning.

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Boonham's reputation has grown steadily. Over the past two decades he has made a series of distinguished portrait bronzes including Sir Geoffrey Keynes, Lord Runcie (Archbishop of Canterbury), Archbishop Daniel Mannix (Archbishop of Melbourne), Peter Jonas and Joseph Needham. Recently he completed an over life-size bronze of Dame Cicely Saunders OM, pioneer of the hospice movement: the first portrait of a woman in the collection of the Royal College of Physicians.

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​His best known portrait, of Diana, Princess of Wales was unveiled by the Princess herself at the National Hospital of Neurology, London. Boonham's three-metre statue of Cardinal Basil Hume set in a memorial garden designed by the sculptor was unveiled in May 2002 in Newcastle by Her Majesty The Queen. Boonham's work is held in many private and public collections including The Royal College of Surgeons; the Royal College of Physicians; Manchester Free Trade Hall, The International Courts of Justice and two portrait bronzes in The National Portrait Gallery.