Nikos Nicolaides

Nicos Nicolaides was a Greek Cypriot painter and writer. Early life Nicolaides was born the son of poor parents in Nicosia, Cyprus, on 3 April 1884. A sister, Maria, followed him two years later. He was only six or seven when their parents died, one after another. Their maternal aunt took charge of the two children. She, too, was not well off. When Nicos reached the fourth grade in the local primary school, he left to take a job in a bookbindery. But when the bookbinder dismissed him for spending more time reading the books than binding them, he took refuge with an icon-painter. Once he had learned the craft, his reputation spread throughout Cyprus as a professional painter of icons. Some paintings he did in 1904 still survive in the villages of the Pitsillia region. Athens In 1907 Nicolaides left Cyprus for Athens. In his baggage he took with him his first literary exercises (in poetry and prose) written in formal katharevousa Greek. Several of them were to appear in the following year in the Athenian publication A.O.D.O. (Apo Ola dia Olous – In All Genders for All Readers). While in Athens he studied for six months at the Fine Arts Department of the Athens Polytechnic. At the same time he started writing to Galazio Louloudi (the Blue Flower) under the influence of Maurice Maeterlinck and the Symbolist movement, then spreading among contemporary dramatists. Nicolaides was able to extend his experience of theatre (he had already had an introduction through attending performances given in Cyprus by visiting Athenian companies) when he became acquainted with Christomanos and theatrical circles in Athens. A few years later he would be lecturing on Ibsen. The art of theatre became for him a third career (literature being his prime interest and painting second), in which he engaged at various times throughout his life in various capacities—as author, researcher, producer, scene-painter, actor and even, on at least one occasion, accompanist. Alexandria, Cairo, and Athens In July 1908, Nicolaides left Athens for Alexandria, and subsequently Cairo. From then until 1915 he moved between the three cities, with frequent trips elsewhere in the Kingdom of Greece (for example Volos), Continental Europe, and the Middle East. In 1914, he was interned by the Turks in Syria. Travel, changes of scene, perpetual restlessness in quest of new experiences were typical of him not only at this period but also practically all his life.