Early History
Lukits was born Nicolae Teodorescu in Timişoara, Transylvania, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father, Theodore Lukits Senior, was a butcher and his mother was a homemaker. He came to the United States when his family immigrated in 1899, when he was two, and he grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. Lukits was a child prodigy and he began formal studies at Washington University in St. Louis School of Fine Arts before he was twelve. His first teacher was Edmund H. Wuerpel (1866–1958). He also studied with Richard E. Miller (1875–1943) in St. Louis, who had returned home from the art colony of Givery and was staying with his parents. Lukits left public school after the 8th grade in order to pursue a career in art, with the full cooperation of his parents. Lukits worked from an early age, first as an office boy and then as an airbrush artist, painting delicate girl's heads on leather.
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