Cherished by all who knew him, my brother Paul Stephen Veres died on May 3, 2024, less than two months before his 80th birthday.
He was admitted into the hospital only a few days before he died, but in that time he had a constant flow of loving visitors, friends and family, with whom he chatted and joked, even through a breathing mask, almost to the end. He left us listening to Mozart’s clarinet concerto. The end was under sedation and painless.
Paul was born on June 21, 1944 in Budapest, the worst year of WWII in Hungary. Jews were being rounded up under the German occupation, there was almost no food, and the newborn baby had almost no chance of survival. All of us who survived that period have lived on borrowed time.
Paul’s immediate family, his mother and father and older brother, survived and emigrated, landing in New York in March, 1949. Paul became a New Yorker, learning English in the public schools of Manhattan. He was an art student in the High School of Music and Art, then at Pratt Institute, and graduated from City College of NY.
After teaching for a time at his old high school, Paul moved to Berkeley in 1973, where he remained for the rest of his life. He taught studio art in high schools in the Bay Area, with great inventiveness and his natural humor and enthusiasm. He taught in San Ramon High School for 19 years, until his retirement in 2009.
Paul loved collecting elegant and fascinating objects, starting with old radios and clocks in New York, and later, primarily since his retirement, he sought and collected old and unusual books, especially ones with fine illustrations. Many of these he transformed into his beautifully produced yearly calendars and note cards, published under his imprint, Calligraphics. The name came from an earlier accomplishment, the design of a dozen digital typefaces, fonts derived from his years of hand-drawn calligraphy work.
While Paul worked in the field of visual arts, he was also passionate about music of all traditions, classical and popular, which he also collected as records and CDs.
Of all his collections his most notable is that of friends. He connected with people through his kindness, generosity, and humor, and he kept in touch with friends from the whole scope of his life. We all miss you, Paul.
La commedia è finita.
