What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s first published short story about an artist named Niggle?

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

The story was first published in the Dublin Review in 1945. Its central character, Niggle, is a painter who becomes absorbed in an enormous tree and its leaves, while everyday obligations repeatedly interrupt his work.

The story is often read as a reflection on artistic creation, unfinished projects, duty, and mortality. Tolkien later connected it with ideas about sub-creation, the creative act by which human makers imagine secondary worlds.

Leaf by Niggle is not part of the narrative of Middle-earth, although its themes are frequently discussed alongside Tolkien’s fantasy writing. Readers may confuse it with Smith of Wootton Major, another independent Tolkien fairy story, but Niggle’s story is the one centered on the painter and his tree.