China was born Nicholas Zeger Driver in Norbury, London and was an established artist and one of the leading fine art erotic photographic printers of the twentieth century.

His work often examined the darker side of female sexuality alongside his more traditional erotic pictures. His unique and distinctive style of image has often been the inspiration for the work of other photographers. China strove to produce photographs that were each unique pieces of creative work. In this quest he mastered and improved upon many historic processes and has contributed to photographic science a number of new printing processes, including making photographic images upon hand-made watercolour paper and copper sheets.

China attended Croydon Technical School before spending four years at Croydon College of Art and Design where he specialised in life drawing under the renowned Fred Janes and studied fine art, graphic design and photography under Herman Hecht. He first started making his own sunlight prints and processing his own film at age eleven and at age thirteen started painting and drawing seriously. Paintings and drawings of wild landscapes and the female nude have always run alongside his photographic work.

He was a polymath, having a particular passion for precision engineering. China had a great enthusiasm for life and he rebuilt and raced historic racing cars and motorcycles; built and drove model steam engines and was a boiler inspector for steam locomotives; and was a Master Clock-smith. He loved Irish Music and was an accomplished bones and bodhran player, cutting the first ever album of traditional bones playing (“Bare Bones”) and wrote the first tutor for the bodhran and the bones.

China was a Buddhist and held qualifications in Herbal Medicine and was well known for his poems and erotic short stories, many of which have been published. China also published the journal, ‘The Black and White Art Photographer’ during the 1990’s.