Nicolai Kuvshinoff, `Artist From The Day He Was Born,' Dies At 89

Nicolai Kuvshinoff died Monday night, leaving 89 years of life dedicated to art and love.

Now, Bertha Kuvshinoff sits in the apartment she shared with him for 35 years, her tiny frame dressed in black pants, sweater, shoes and a knit cap hiding long silver hair.

"I'm OK," she says. "Tired."

Her husband's death ended an inseparable marriage of 57 years. Both of them artists, they protected each other's solitude in the studio apartment in the Cascade neighborhood where they lived and worked.

"He was an artist from the day he was born," Bertha says. "His mother had a hard birth bringing in the easel and all of his equipment along with Nicolai."

She chuckles at that. "You have to have a little humor."

Nicolai Kuvshinoff was born in Russia and immigrated to the United States with his family when he was a child. The family lived in Minnesota before moving to Seattle, where his father built the Russian Orthodox St. Spiridon Church in Cascade.

Nicolai and Bertha Kuvshinoff were married there, beginning a union that only strengthened with time. Both are accomplished painters, with works collected by museums around the world, including the Seattle Art Museum.

He had many one-man shows throughout Europe and in the U.S., exhibiting a style that was called neo-cubist. Abstract and bold, it was similar to Pablo Picasso's work and is noted in the "Who's Who in American Art" almanac.

His career began early. While still in high school, he sketched fashion ads for the Bon Marche. That was followed by a stint at The Seattle Post-Intelligencer as a cartoonist, before he started his own art school in Port Townsend.

Creative in every way, he also enjoyed music. "He did play the balalaika," his widow says, adding, "Now, I have to talk in the past tense, don't I?"

She reaches for a carefully arranged collection of documents from his service in World War II. He not only painted murals for Seattle nightclubs, but also for officers' clubs while he was in the armed forces between 1943 and 1946. During that time, he was decorated with two Bronze Stars. He was stationed in India, central Burma and China, and weighed 143 pounds when he enlisted.

"Wounds discovered in service - none," she reads. "Well, that's nice to know."

She says this almost to herself. She's still protective of him, a habit that intensified during the last five years of his life. He had a stroke that made it difficult for him to walk, eat and talk. She cared for him alone until last week, when he fell and was taken to Swedish Medical Center for treatment, and then to the Queen Anne Care Center to recover.

"He died of old age," says a friend, Gail Ketterer, who was at the Queen Anne center with Bertha when he died. He had been unresponsive for three days, but on Monday he finally opened his eyes.

"He watched Bertha for a half hour, and then took his last breath," Ketterer says.

No pomp and circumstance will mark his death - not even a service. Before he died, the Kuvshinoffs settled on a moment of silence, and that's how his life was closed.

Nicolai Kuvshinoff also is survived by two brothers, Boris and Bill, and many nieces and nephews.