CAA News Today

CAA recognizes the lives and achievements of the following artists, photographers, scholars, curators, critics, dealers, collectors, and other professionals and important figures in the visual arts. Of special note is Zena Pearlstone’s text on the Native American artist Michael Kabotie.

• Sarane Alexandrian, an art historian, poet, writer, and founder of the literary magazine Supérieur Inconnu, which was dedicated to Surrealism, died on September 11, 2009, at the age of 82
• Frances L. Brody, an arts advocate, collector, and benefactor of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Gardens, died on November 12, 2009, at the age of 93
• José Cisneros, a self-taught artist best known for his pen-and-ink sketches of history and life in the southwestern United States, died on November 14, 2009, at the age of 99. He was awarded a National Humanities Medal in 2002.
• Roy DeCarava, a photographer and professor of art who sought creative expression, rather than social documentary, through his photography of life in Harlem, died on October 27, 2009. He was 89
• Evelyn Hofer, a photographer of both human and architectural subjects who excelled at still, composed portraits and scenes, died on November 2, 2009. She was 87
• Michael Kabotie, a Hopi artist, muralist, jeweler, poet, and printmaker whose work promoted understanding of traditional Hopi teachings, died on October 23, at the age of 67. Read Zena Pearlstone’s text, written especially for CAA
• Wolfgang Ketterer, a German art dealer whose gallery in Stuttgart and Munich specialized in modern art, died on October 14, 2009. He was 89
• Irving Kriesberg, a figurative expressionist painter praised for his bold forms and intense colors, died on November 11, 2009, at the age of 90
• Robert Lautman, an architectural photographer whose work focuses on the use of light to capture architectural design, died on October 20, 2009, at the age of 85
• Claude Lévi-Strauss, a preeminent anthropologist whose structuralist approach influenced many writers, theorists, and art historians worldwide, died on October 30, 2009. He was 100
• A. John Poole, an architectural sculptor, letter cutter, restorer of sculpture, and teacher whose often-ecclesiastical work can be found throughout Britain, died on September 2, 2009. He was 83
• Meir “Mike” Ronnen, an art critic for the Jerusalem Post and a cartoonist known for his satirical commentary about life in Israel, died on August 30, 3009, at the age of 83
• Robert Taylor, a former chief art and book critic for the Boston Globe, died on October 25, 2009, at the age of 84
• Nick Waterlow, an art curator and the director of three Sydney Biennales whose exhibitions sought to challenge Australian and international views of contemporary art, died on November 9, 2009. He was 68
• Albert York, a reclusive artist who painted intimate landscapes and still lifes with a quiet sense of the mysterious, died on October 27, 2009, at the age of 80

Read all past obituaries in the arts on the CAA website.