John Joseph Nicolini Sr's Obituary
John Joseph Nicolini, Sr., died peacefully in Alameda, California at the age of 91 on November 23, 2014. The only child of Rosario “Sam” and Henrietta Nicolini (nee Bourda), John was born on June 4, 1923 in San Francisco, California. He lived in San Francisco, Oakland, and Burlingame as a young child until his family moved back to Oakland, where he would live for most of his life, moving in 2009 with his wife, Edy, to Bethel Island in Contra Costa County.
He was a 1942 graduate of Fremont High School in Oakland where he excelled in sports, playing baseball and basketball and became captain of each of those teams. In high school he was also elected President of the Block F Society. He was part of a group of friends affectionately known as “The Rover Boys” who maintained their friendships with each other throughout their lives. He also excelled in gymnastics and weightlifting and continued to work out and lift weights into his late 80s.
A member of “The Greatest Generation,” John joined the United States Navy upon graduating from high school, as World War II was then in progress. He served on a container ship, the USS Boreas, in the South Pacific for nearly four years as a radioman until the war ended in 1945.
Always an athlete, he took advantage of the GI Bill to attend San Francisco State University and intended to become a physical education teacher. Before finishing his studies, he joined the Merchant Marines, serving his country in that capacity in the late 1940s and early 1950s. He worked for Shell Oil in the 1950’s, leaving that company to enroll in the California College of the Arts (then California College of Arts and Crafts) in Oakland, graduating in 1959 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree.
In 1963, two days before his 40th birthday, John met the love of his life, Edith Ann Eggert. They married in Oakland in 1964 and had two children, Judith Lorraine (“Lorri”) and John Joseph, Jr. He was an active and involved father who delighted in his children and their activities. He considered his children and family the highlight of his life. John and Edy enjoyed a long, happy marriage celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary together with their children and granddaughter, Carla, the day before John died.
Among John’s many interests were jazz and sports. He had an extensive collection of albums and books about jazz and could recall the names of musicians and arrangers and variations of songs to rival any music historian. He was constantly open to learning about music and took piano and vibraphone lessons, and later took courses in music composition and arranging. In high school he played the drums, and for a time as a senior citizen was the drummer for a Dixieland jazz band that performed occasionally in the Bay Area.
He was a life-long San Francisco Giants and San Francisco 49ers fan and lived to see his favorite baseball team win its third World Series within the last five years. He was an accomplished tennis player who played nearly every day for decades for pure enjoyment and also entered tournaments with great success. He was a long-time member of both the Oakland Hills Tennis Club and the Berkeley Tennis Club and at one time was ranked by the United State Tennis Association (USTA) No. 1 in his age group in Northern California.
John was a gifted artist who honed his craft throughout his life and created many beautiful works of art that now reside in several private and public collections. In addition to his CCAC education, he participated in classes and workshops throughout his career, including a summer where he studied design and illustration in New York City. His expertise was painting, mainly watercolor and oil paintings. He also did pencil drawings and sketches and experimented in other media. In 1968, after having worked for Coopers department store providing fashion illustrations for their newspaper ads and for Electrical Products designing signs, he started his own business, a graphic arts firm, Nicolini Associates, which he ran for over 40 years and which allowed him the freedom to create as he pleased. Through his own firm he created many architectural renderings, brochures, logos, and catalogs, among other projects. His paintings have been shown in numerous exhibitions and shows throughout the Bay Area, in addition to being on display at various times at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, California, the Master Eagle Gallery in New York, New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Plantation, Florida, the College De Sainte-Foy in Quebec, Canada, and Le Salon des Nations in Paris, France. His awards and recognitions include the International Typeface Design award for the “Nicolini Broadpen” typeface in 1968, the Annual Ad-Mark Competition, Graphic Design/Illustration, 1975 and 1976, American Corporate Logo Design, 2006 (published internationally), and a merit award in the Juried International Art Show at the Seaside Gallery, in North Carolina in 2008. In 1988 he was the subject of a featured article in the Art Product News, published in Florida, and his work was also featured in the New York Art Review.
John had a calm, quiet personality and was a man of great personal integrity. He had an active, inquisitive mind and a childlike sense of wonder. He had an unassuming, easy-going sense of humor and was extremely content in his life. He also took great pride in his Sicilian heritage and his connection to his immediate and extended family. He is survived by his beloved wife, Edy Nicolini, their two children, Judith Lorraine (“Lorri”) Nicolini and John Joseph Nicolini, Jr., granddaughter, Carla Henrietta Nicolini, sister-in-law Valerie Hanson, nieces Leslie Megan Hanson and Dana Marie Hanson, and many other family and friends. The family asks that any donations be made to California College of the Arts. Services to be held at a later date.
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