Nelson Shanks has served as professor at the University of the Arts and as distinguished visiting professor in Fine Arts at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and conducted seminars at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the New York Academy of Art and numerous universities. He has taught at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and Memphis Academy of Arts and the Robert and Mary Montgomery Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach, Florida. Arcadia University awarded him a Ph.D. in Fine Arts. "Advanced painting workshops taught by Nelson Shanks attract hundreds of artists from across the country." [Arts & Antiques, Summer 1997] He is clearly one of the most sought after teachers in the world and founder of the post-graduate school, Studio Incamminati.

In Italy, he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence and with Pietro Annigoni. He traveled and studied extensively throughout Europe. He has received grants: the Greenshields Foundation (twice) and the Stacey Foundation (three times) between l96l and l974. Earlier he studied at the University of Kansas and the Kansas City Art Institute with Wilbur Niewald and in New York at the National Academy of Design and The Art Students League with Ivan Olinsky, Robert Brackman, Edwin Dickinson and privately with John Koch and Henry Hensche.

His work has been exhibited in numerous museums and galleries worldwide, including the National Academy of Design; Hirschl & Adler Galleries; Coe Kerr and FAR Galleries in New York; Dayton Art Institute; the Butler Institute of American Art; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Philadelphia Art Alliance; the New Jersey State Museum; the National Gallery of Art; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Oklahoma University; the University of Pennsylvania; Temple University; Jefferson University; Johns Hopkins University; the College of William and Mary; the Allentown Art Museum; the Palmer Museum of Art; George Washington University; the University of the Arts; Oglethorpe University Museum; LaSalle University; the Royal Palace, Stockholm; and Kensington Palace, London. A major one-man exhibition was held at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts as well as Hirschl & Adler Galleries in 1996 where his portrait of HRH The Princess of Wales was the feature painting in the Hirschl & Adler exhibition, "Yanks Paint Brits." In August 2004, the city of Sarzana, Italy, hosted a one-man exhibition entitled 'Dal Maestro'/ 'From the Master', in a fifteenth century fortress called Fortezza Firmafede. The Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA also hosted an exhibition 'Dal Maestro' in October 2004 of more than fifty works by Nelson Shanks. His work is in very distinguished European and American collections. Major one-man exhibitions have been requested by the Russian Academy, Moscow, and the Russian State Museum, St. Petersburg, in 2008.

Commissioned portraits of noted figures include: Her Royal Highness, Diana, The Princess of Wales, His Majesty King Gustav and Her Majesty Queen Silvia of Sweden, Queen Julianna of the Netherlands, President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, Lady Margaret Thatcher, Luciano Pavarotti, J. Carter Brown, Katharine Graham, Judge Guido Calabresi, Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop, Robert Wood Johnson, Jr., Mrs. Robert Wood Johnson, Jr., James Burke, Marcus Wallenberg, Dr. Peter Wallenberg, Ms. Darla Moore, Mr. Lionel Pincus, Mr. Jerry Speyer, Chairman of the Board, Museum of Modern Art, Arthur O. Sulzberger, Sr., Chairman of the Board, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Chairman Emeritus New York Times, Lord Charles Spencer, Mary McFadden, President Clinton for the National Portrait Gallery, Pope John Paul II for the Vatican Museum, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and many others.