CAA News Today

CAA recognizes the lives and achievements of the following artists, scholars, photographers, collectors, museum directors, and other important figures in the visual arts. Of particular interest is a thoughtful text on the art historian and public-art preservationist Marlene Park, written especially for CAA by her colleague Herbert R. Hartel Jr.

• Katia Bassanini, a Swiss artist based in Lugano and New York who worked in video, drawing, performance, and sculpture, died on July 20, 2010. She was 40
• Thomas S. Buechner, founding director of the Corning Museum of Glass in 1950 and head of the Brooklyn Museum during the 1960s, died on June 13, 2010, at age 83
• Nicolas Carone, an Abstract Expressionist painter and founding member of the New York Studio School, where he taught for almost twenty-five years, died on July 15, 2010. He was 93
• Joe Deal, an American landscape photographer included in the influential New Topographics exhibition in 1975, died on June 18, 2010, at the age of 62. A longtime teacher and administrator, he was a member of the CAA Board of Directors from 1997 to 2001, serving as secretary for the last two years.
• Daniele Di Castro, an art historian and director of the Jewish Museum of Rome, died on June 25, 2010
• Harry Eccleston, artist, president of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, and chief designer for the Bank of England, where he created the pictorial Series D banknotes, died on April 30, 2010. He was 87
• Carola Hicks, art historian, biographer, and author of books on the Bayeux Tapestry and the stained-glass windows of King’s College Chapel, died on June 23, 2010. She was 68
• Stephen Kanner, architect and cofounder of the Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles, died on July 2, 2010, at the age of 54
• Rudolf Leopold, an Austrian ophthalmologist and art collector who focused on twentieth-century art from his country, died on June 29, 2010, at age 85. He was known for popularizing Egon Schiele through several books
• Jim Marshall, a photographer who took classic portraits of the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Cash, and other sixties icons, died on March 24, 2010, at the age of 74
• Eleanor R. Morse, an art collector and founder of the Salvador Dalí Museum in Florida, died on July 1, 2010, at the age of 97
• Marlene Park, an artist historian of twentieth-century American art, a public-art preservationist, and a photographer, died on July 10, 2010, at age 78. Read a special text on her by Herbert R. Hartel Jr.
• Harvey Pekar, author of the critically praised comic-book series American Splendor, died on July 12, 2010, at the age of 70
• Rammellzee, a pioneer of graffiti art and hip-hop music in New York, died on June 27, 2010. He was 49
• Helene Zucker Seeman, writer, teacher, and director of the Art Acquisition Program for Prudential Life Insurance for many years, died on June 27, 2010. She was 60 years old
• Robert Shapazian, art dealer, publisher of artist’s books, and founding director of the Californian branch of Gagosian Gallery, died on June 19, 2010, at age 67
• Jan-Erik von Löwenadler, a Swedish art dealer and collector who staged exhibitions internationally, died on July 24, 2010, at the age of 74
• Richard Walker, art historian, cataloguer, and adviser to the Government Art Collection in the United Kingdom, died on May 6, 2010. He was 93
• Wu Guanzhong, a painter and teacher who is widely considered among the most important and influential in twentieth-century Chinese art, died on June 25, 2010. He was 91

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