What is the title of J.R.R. Tolkien’s short story about an artist named Niggle?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s short story about an artist named Niggle is titled Leaf by Niggle.

The story was first published in the Dublin Review in 1945. Niggle is a painter who spends much of his life trying to complete a vast picture of a tree. He is distracted by practical duties and by concern for his neighbour, Parish, so he never finishes the whole painting during his earthly life.

After death, Niggle discovers that elements of his imagined tree exist in a more complete reality. The story explores artistic creation, duty, charity, mortality, and the relationship between an unfinished human work and a larger purpose.

Leaf by Niggle is not a Middle-earth adventure and does not feature hobbits, Elves, or the One Ring. Tolkien regarded it as an important expression of his ideas about sub-creation, the human act of making imaginative worlds in response to the Creator.