Nathan Ornoff 1/01/1912-7/19/1940

Family- Parents: Ike and Rebecca; Siblings: Mae, Sarah and Harold

Ornoff was the son of Ike and Rebecca Shapiro Ornoff, scrap dealers from Lithuania who had an iron and metal yard in Durham. As a boy, he played the violin and was very interested in drawing. According to Jewish historian Leonard Rogoff, he won a national art competition judged by Edward Hopper. When he finished high school, he moved to New York City to attend the National Academy of Art. Later, he moved back to Durham to run an art school.

One day he was painting out in the country, drank some polluted water and died from an intestinal illness. He was 28.