Theodore Thomas Nowick

Theodore Thomas Nowick was born August 6, 1930, on his family’s potato farm just outside the town of King’s Park on Long Island, New York. He died October 3, 2025, in his room in Kendal at Oberlin’s Care Center.

Ted’s parents, Frank and Anna Nowick, both immigrated from Russia. His mother came with her family in the late 1800s, and his father came alone in the early 1900s. They met on the lower East Side of New York City, married, and somehow managed to buy the potato farm on Long Island. Ted grew up on that farm with his four sisters and two brothers. He attended

 King’s Park public schools and then received a bachelor's degree from Syracuse University. He worked for a while on Wall Street and then in the finance department of Colgate Palmolive, before deciding to retire early.

He moved to Washington, D.C., in April of 1975. He met Robert Taylor in June of that year, and the two have been together ever since. They were married in Cooperstown, New York, April 26, 2014.

Ted started his artistic career as a ceramicist. He studied for four years at the Corcoran Gallery School of Art in Washington, D.C., first in the ceramics department and then in the sculpture department. There, he began experimenting with large-scale clay pieces before moving into abstract sculpture, working primarily in wood, stone, and metal. His most recent sculptural pieces are mobiles made of a variety of materials, including metal, wood, cloth, paper, and rattan.

He studied art abroad at the University of Loughborough in England and, in this country, at the State University of New York at Binghamton; at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York; and at the University of Maine in Orono. His artworks have been shown in Washington, D.C.; Bethesda, Maryland; Annapolis, Maryland; Saratoga Springs; a number of places in Maine, including Orono, Portland, Kennebunkport, Blue Hill, Deer Isle, and Stonington; in Kailuum, Mexico; and in Cleveland and Oberlin, Ohio.

In May of 1990, Ted received an award for excellence in studio art from the University of Maine. For more than 30 years, beginning in the 1980s, he helped teach a course in three-dimensional design as part of the summer art program at Skidmore College.

Ted and Robert moved from East Blue Hill, Maine, to Kendal at Oberlin in December 2003. Ted immediately began his association with Ginko Gallery in downtown Oberlin, creating mobiles in his studio at the back of the building and selling them in the gallery at the front. That first year, he also started working with a group of Kendal residents to create decorations that he designed to hang from the ceiling of the Kendal Auditorium as part of the community’s annual Spring Fling in April.

Ted is survived by his husband, Robert Taylor.

In remembrance of Ted, memorial contributions may be made to the Kendal at Oberlin Residents Assistance Fund.

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