By Hugh Clark
Advertiser Big Island Bureau
PUAKO, Hawai‘i — Noted Big Island artist Emrich Nicholson, 87, died of a heart attack Feb. 25 at his Puako home in South Kohala where he had lived since 1969.
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| Artist Emrich Nicholson’s talents were featured in Vogue, the New Yorker and Time magazines. He moved to South Kohala in 1969.
Advertiser library photo |
The former Hollywood set designer and pioneering television advertising art director spent the last quarter of his life producing oil paintings of Big Island landscapes and tropical floral motifs that were sold at galleries at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel just a few miles from his home and at other luxury resorts.
Nicholson was born Sept. 5, 1913, in Indiana. He earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Yale University in 1936. His art design skills were featured in Vogue, the New Yorker and Time magazines, and one of his banner designs for the 1939 World’s Fair in New York was featured in a 1996 exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York.
Nicholson served as a member of the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. After the war, he worked as an art director at Universal and Paramount studios in California. His film credits include "One Touch of Venus" starring Ava Gardner (1948), "Magnificent Obsession" with Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson (1954), and "The Cimarron Kid" with Audie Murphy (1951). He then moved into the emerging field of TV advertising, serving as color coordinator and national art director for Leo Burnett advertising agency just as the TV industry was evolving from black-and-white broadcasts to color.
A private scattering of the ashes was held last week in South Kohala, with a memorial service planned for some time in May. Nicholson is survived by sons William of Honoka‘a and Mohamed Zakariya of Virginia; daughters Barbara Nicholson and Sara Barry, both of Seattle; sisters Dorothy Breese of South Carolina and Patricia Offer of Arizona and Honolulu; and four grandchildren.
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