CAA News Today

CAA recognizes the lives and achievements of the following artists, scholars, photographers, critics, collectors, museum directors, and other important figures in the visual arts. Of particular interest is a text on the artist and teacher Marvin Lowe, written especially for CAA by Wendy Calman.

• Arakawa, an artist born in Japan but based in New York who with his wife strove to halt aging with paintings and installations, died on May 18, 2010. He was 73
• Louise Bourgeois, an internationally acclaimed artist who created psychologically charged work in sculpture and on paper that has inspired countless artists, died on May 31, 2010, at the age of 98. CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts is preparing a tribute to Bourgeois, to appear on the CAA website later this month
• David Dillon, a longtime architecture critic for the Dallas Morning News and the author of a dozen books, died on June 3, 2010, at the age of 68
• Brian Duffy, a fashion and portrait photographer known for his fiery temper as much as his work in swinging London as part of the Black Trinity, died on May 31, 2010. He was 76
• Teshome H. Gabriel, a cinema scholar in the School of Theater, Film, and Television at the University of California, Los Angeles, died on June 14, 2010
• Dennis Hopper, a maverick yet revered Hollywood actor who was also a photographer and a collector of modern art, died on May 29, 2010. He was 74
• Lester Frederick Johnson, an American figurative painter who was a member of the second generation of Abstract Expressionists, died on May 30, 2010. He was 91
• Donald Krieger, an artist and performer based in Los Angeles who also taught graphic design and began curating, died on May 3, 2010. He was 57
• Marvin Lowe, an artist, musician, and longtime professor of printmaking at Indiana University, died on April 28, 2010, at the age of 87. Read Wendy Calman’s special obituary on him
• Sigmar Polke, a highly influential German painter who in the 1960s helped found Capitalist Realism with Gerhard Richter and Konrad Lueg, died on June 10, 2010. He was 69
• Stephen Smarr, a master glass artist based in Bloomsbury, New Jersey, died on May 28, 2010, at the age of 53
• Michael Wojas, the owner of and bartender at London’s infamous Colony Room Club who served Francis Bacon, Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, and Tracey Emin, died on June 6, 2010. He was 53
• Tobias Wong, a New York–based conceptual designer and artist who was included in exhibitions at the Cooper-Hewitt and Museum of Modern Art, died on May 30, 2010. He was 35
• James N. Wood, president of the J. Paul Getty Foundation and the director of the Art Institute of Chicago for twenty-four years, died on June 11, 2010. He was 69

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