[1][2] During World War I, he served in the United States Army in France as a camouflage artist.
He made his living initially by a variety of jobs, including picture framing, journalism, and even by appearing once in a film as an extra, playing the role of an art student.
Despite his family's opposition, he did in fact become an art student, during which he attended the Art Students League of New York in New York City, where he studied with John Sloan, George Bridgman, and Kenneth Hayes Miller.
[5] He served in the U.S. Army in France during World War I, where he was one of the first American camouflage artists, serving in the American Camouflage Corps alongside Barry Faulkner, Sherry Edmundson Fry, Abraham Rattner and others.
[citation needed] Nicolaïdes worked as a member of the board of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation which administered the foundation and managed the Tiffany's Laurelton Hall estate (nicknamed the Oyster Bay estate).