Graffiti Icon Nic 707 Dies from COVID-19
Nic 707 at Bowery Boogie Golden Gauntlet, Photo George Brock
An icon of the 1970s graffiti scene recently fell victim to COVID-19.
Fernando Pablo Miteff, known as Nic 707, passed away Sunday after a battle with the novel coronavirus. He was 60.
Born in Argentina, and raised in the Bronx, Miteff achieved underground fame as part the radical art explosion in the mid-seventies. (His father was famed heavyweight boxer Pablo Alexis Miteff.) He began as a young teenage tagger with the names Stine 169 and Tuc 2, but graduated to Nic 707 in 1974. This translated to bombing subway cars on both the IRT and IND lines.
But after returning from camp one summer, his mother tossed his spray cans, markers, and black books, effectively ending the honeymoon. He eventually bounced back with a number of jobs from limo driver to stand-up comic.
His most recent return to form was InstaFame Phantom Art, which saw the placement of his artwork in subway car ad frames.
Miteff is considered an early “style master,” a title bestowed on those artists exhibiting “exceptional creativity, refined artistic talent and the willingness to share techniques with other artists.”
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