Ninety-nine-year-old Thomas Naegele retired from teaching commercial art at the HS of Art & Design in Manhattan 32 years ago, but his legacy lives on in two generations of art teachers that he inspired in his wake.

Naegele said what he most enjoyed as a teacher during his 32 years at the school were the relationships he built with his students. “They listened to me, they allowed themselves to be helped, they came to the classroom enthusiastically and left that way, and they didn’t mind having to stay overtime or come in on a Saturday,” he said.

Naegele said his primary goal as a teacher was to help his students become employable and self-supporting, with or without a college education.

“It had worked for me, and I believed in the mission that the city of New York, with all its industrial business, was a unique market that not only needed these young people but owed them in advance this kind of educational support and opportunities,” he said.

Among his former students-turned-educators is Robert Aviles, a teacher at IS 347 in Brooklyn. Aviles, who has been teaching for 30 years, said he emulated his old high teacher in assigning engaging and challenging art projects that require persistence and stretch the imagination.

Aviles, an aspiring illustrator in high school, remembers Naegele as a “straight shooter” who was enthusiastic about what he taught and serious about its importance.

“He sure went out of his way for us, and I’m grateful and I’m better for it,” he said.

Albert Justiniano, who teaches art at PS 753, a District 75 school in Brooklyn, said Naegele was a serious yet “fatherly like and friendly” teacher who could joke around and make his students feel comfortable. Justiniano, who was a marketing and creative design director before he began teaching 23 years ago, credits Naegele, who taught him advertising and design, with inspiring him to pursue a career in the arts.

Retired educator Geralyn Zink remembers how Naegele would recognize student success by awarding certificates or giving students a metal T-square with their name etched on it. She incorporated that strategy in her own classes as a public school teacher.

Zink, who took an advertising class and a yearbook class with Naegele in the 1970s, said he pushed her to be the best she could be and appreciated her work. “It was impactful for me to get that in an art classroom where everybody is artistic,” said Zink, who taught art for seven years in Brooklyn public schools and 29 years in public schools in upstate New York.

Zink said Naegele taught her “the nuts and bolts that art teachers really need to be successful,” such as monitoring art supplies, managing the classroom and keeping students’ work labeled and organized.

These three educators were among the former students who united to honor Naegele at an Oct. 20 celebration of his 99th birthday organized by the New York City Art Teachers Association/UFT, a union professional committee in which he was active for many years. Several of the 35 posters Naegele created for NYCATA’s annual art education conference between 1985 and 2017 were on display at the celebration.

Naegele, at age 14, fled Nazi Germany with his family in 1938. When his family settled in New York City two years later, Naegele enrolled in the School of Industrial Art, now the HS of Art & Design. The school encouraged his artistic talents and recommended him for freelance work and jobs before and after he graduated as valedictorian.

Naegele had a successful first career working in magazine publishing, at several nascent television stations, and as television art director for advertising pioneer J. Walter Thompson before turning to teaching in 1959 at age 35.

Recruited by his alma mater, Naegele taught advertising art, typographic design, the history of art, calligraphy and yearbook.

To supplement his meager $3,000 annual teaching salary at the start of his career, he continued freelancing and taught at the Pratt Institute. Some of his side work included designing several U.S. postage stamps as well as Christmas cards published by American Artists Group.

Naegele said he is gratified but not surprised by the number of future art teachers who were among his students.

“Anybody who follows in your footsteps is proof that you showed them the way,” he said.