Alfred Nicholson Jr. ’50

Al was born in Paris of American parents, grew up in the Philadelphia area, and prepared at The Hill School. At Princeton he pursued his interest in painting, studying under H. Lester Cooke. Like his art historian father, Alfred Nicholson ’21, he enjoyed the Old Masters, whose paintings served as models for his own creative work.

At the end of his junior year, Al left Princeton, where he belonged to Key and Seal, and enlisted in the Air Force. He served in Korea, then returned to the United States to study painting at the Tyler School of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Thereafter, Al lived the life of an independent painter, first in the Cape May area and later in Bridgeton.

Al was a master of the portrayal of trees, and poetic landscapes were his specialty. He also devoted much of his life to preservation of the unspoiled resources of nature.  

He leaves his wife, Mary Lou, who encouraged his ambitions and shared in his preservation efforts; his sister, Ann; and his children, Ann, Jean, and Michael.