CAA News Today
Summer Obituaries in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — August 02, 2010
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.
June Obituaries in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — June 15, 2010
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.
Marvin Lowe: In Memoriam
posted by CAA — June 15, 2010
Wendy Calman is associate professor and cohead of printmaking at the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts at Indiana University in Bloomington.
![](http://www.collegeart.org/images/obituaries/lowe.jpg)
Marvin Lowe (photograph provided by Wendy Calman)
Marvin Lowe, an artist, musician, and professor emeritus at Indiana University, died peacefully on April 28, 2010, in Tucson, Arizona. He was 87 years old.
Lowe was born in Brooklyn, New York, on May 19, 1922. He attended Brooklyn Technical High School, studying math and physics while cultivating an early love for music, particularly jazz. Joining the Navy during World War II, he played tenor saxophone in Artie Shaw’s navy band, and in the band on the battleship Arkansas. Home from war, Lowe played with big bands led by Raymond Scott, Woody Herman, and Bobby Sherwood. On tour in St. Louis, he met the Watkins Twins, Juel and June, a professional vaudeville act whose signature performance included dancing on point atop a bass drum. Lowe married Juel on April 1, 1949. Music and dance filled their life together. Their daughter Melissa, born in 1955, became a professional ballerina, and their granddaughter Claire is an accomplished dancer in her own right.
Lowe entered the Juilliard School to study musical composition, then received a BA in English literature from Brooklyn College in 1955, spending his free time visiting art museums. He also began to draw. Performing in nightclubs, Lowe became friends with the iconic artist Larry Rivers, who also played sax. Lowe showed him his drawings, and Rivers was encouraging. Tired of the distractions of life as a jazz musician, Lowe applied to the printmaking program at the University of Iowa, where under the direction of Mauricio Lasansky he spent the next four years developing as an artist. Playing jazz to support his family, Lowe also took a job in the Physics Department, reawakening a childhood interest in astronomy and cosmology, elements that would resurface frequently in his work.
Receiving his MFA in 1960, Lowe taught at Berea College in Kentucky and at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. At a workshop in Florence, Italy, he met the artist Rudy Pozzatti, and “the rest is history.” Lowe was hired at Indiana University, Bloomington, in 1967, where he and Pozzatti worked together building the IU Printmaking Workshop’s outstanding reputation for teaching and research. Joined by Wendy Calman in 1976, they spent fifteen years creating one of the most successful and highest-ranked printmaking programs in the United States.
![](http://www.collegeart.org/images/obituaries/loweart.jpg)
Marvin Lowe, Earth, 1995, acrylic and college on paper (artwork © Marvin Lowe; photograph provided by Wendy Calman)
Lowe’s works have been shown in over two hundred national and international exhibitions, and can be found in eighty permanent museum, university, and corporate collections, most notably the British Museum, the Japan Print Association (Tokyo), the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the Smithsonian Institution, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum. He has had over fifty solo exhibitions and received more than thirty awards, among them a National Endowment for the Arts Artist’s Fellowship and a Ford Foundation grant.
Retired from teaching in 1991, Lowe created an extensive repertoire of works forging new directions. His mixed-media pieces, which include aspects of collage, painting, and printmaking, some over ten feet wide, incorporated figurative elements, astrological charts, and decorative ritual forms. Ideas about science, politics, history, and music resound throughout this period. Lowe continued to live and work in the studio built for him by his family in Tucson, Arizona, where he settled after his wife Juel died in 2002.
Writing about their friend and colleague, Pozzatti and Calman stated, “His most important contributions are the least tangible. His exciting intellect, his energy, his tenacity, his generosity, and his great sense of humor have given those of us fortunate enough to have worked with him a presence that will remain as an inspiration to us all.”
Lowe is survived by his daughter Melissa Lowe Hancock; son-in-law Jory Hancock; granddaughter Claire Elise Hancock; nieces and nephews Geoffrey, Greg, and Cynthia Cortelyou, and Wedge and Kelly Watkins; and extended family. The legacy of his life lives on through them and the many students whose lives he touched.
May Obituaries in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — May 19, 2010
CAA recognizes the lives and achievements of the following artists, scholars, curators, teachers, architects, collectors, administrators, and other important figures in the visual arts.
- Callie Angel, a specialist on the films of Andy Warhol who worked with the Whitney Museum of American Art and Museum of Modern Art, died on May 5, 2010. She was 62
- Avigdor Arikha, a Paris-based painter of both abstract and figurative art, a graphic designer, and a Holocaust survivor, died on April 29, 2010, at the age of 81
- Jose Bernal, a Cuban artist and teacher who fled Castro’s regime for Chicago, died on April 19, 2010, at the age of 85
- David Bolduc, a Canadian artist and illustrator celebrated for his colorful abstractions, died on April 8, 2010. He was 65
- James “Jack” Boynton, a Texan artist and teacher who helped found the art department at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, died on April 5, 2010. He was 82
- Oliver Cox, an English architect of housing and schools, died on April 24, 2010, at the age of 90
- Bruce Craig, director of research and planning at the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies, died on March 9, 2010. He was 53
- Frank Frazetta, a painter and illustrator of fantasy scenes whose work adorned the covers of books and albums as well as movie posters, died on May 10, 2010. He was 82
- Jonathan Gams, publisher of the poetry and art magazine Lingo and a cofounder of Hard Press Editions, died on November 9, 2009, at the age of 57
- Michael Godfrey, a curator at the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art in North Carolina, died on April 6, 2010. He was 56
- Bobby Gore, an art historian and adviser on pictures to the UK’s National Trust, died on April 23, 2010, at the age of 89
- Craig Kauffman, a sculptor associated with the Los Angeles scene in the 1950s and 1960s, died on May 9, 2010, at the age of 78
- Neil E. Matthew, an artist and a professor emeritus at the Herron School of Art and Design, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, died on January 5, 2010. He was 84
- Malcolm McLaren, an artist, fashion designer, cultural provocateur, and manager of the punk band the Sex Pistols, died on April 8, 2010. He was 64
- Robert Natkin, an abstract artist who lived and worked in Chicago, New York, and Redding, Connecticut, died on April 20, 2010. He was 79
- Norman Neasom, a painter and longtime teacher at the Redditch School of Art in Worcestershire, England, died on February 22, 2010, at the age of 94
- Max Palevsky, a philanthropist who made his fortune in computers in the 1960s and a collector of art and furniture, died on May 5, 2010, at the age of 85
- Count Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, an Italian businessman and a major collector of postwar American art who donated works to the emerging Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, died on April 23, 2010. He was 87
- Victor Pesce, a former plumber and a painter of still lifes who lived and worked in New York, died on March 28, 2010, at age 71
- Deborah Remington, an abstract painter who showed at Bykert Gallery in the 1960s and 1970s, died on April 21, 2010, at the age of 79
- Werner Schroeter, a German film director who was a contemporary of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wim Wenders, and Werner Herzog, died on April 12, 2010, at the age of 65
- Dustin Shuler, a sculptor based in California whose best-known work, Spindle, impales eight cars on a large stake, died on May 4, 2010, at the age of 61
- Yvonne Skargon, an English artist and teacher who specialized in wood engravings, died on March 16, 2010. She was 78
- Jan van der Marck, a Dutch curator who worked at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Detroit Institute of Arts, died on April 28, 2010, at the age of 80
- John Carl Warnecke, the official architect of the Kennedy administration who designed that president’s grave site, died on April 17, 2010, at the age of 91
- Purvis Young, a self-taught artist who lived and worked in south Florida, died on April 20, 2010. He was 67
Read all past obituaries in the arts on the CAA website.
Spring Obituaries in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — April 05, 2010
CAA recognizes the lives and achievements of the following artists, architects, scholars, teachers, philanthropists, and other important figures in the visual arts.
- Diane Bergheim, an arts advocate based in Alexandria, Virginia, died on March 27, 2010, at the age of 84
- George Ehrlich, a professor emeritus of art and architectural history at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, died on November 28, 2009. He was 84
- Werner Forman, a photographer of art objects who chronicled ancient, Asian, and other non-Western art, died on February 13, 2010, at age 89
- Peter Foster, an architect and the surveyor of Westminster Abbey from 1973 to 1988, died on March 6, 2010. He was 90
- Bruce Graham, the architect of the Sears Tower and John Hancock Center in Chicago, died on March 6, 2010, at the age of 84
- Denys Hinton, a British architect who brought modernism to church architecture, died on February 10, 2010, at age 88
- Terry Rossi Kirk, a scholar of architecture who taught at American University in Rome and authored The Architecture of Modern Italy, died on October 17, 2009. He was 48
- Lionel Lambourne, a curator and scholar at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, died on February 12, 2010, at age 76
- Lesley Lewis, an author and a historian of art and architecture who was one of the first four students at the Courtauld Institute of Art, died on January 29, 2010, at the age of 100
- Rhoda “Dodie” Helen Masterman, an artist and teacher who drew illustrations for novels by Tolstoy, Joyce, Balzac, and more, died on December 17, 2009. She was 91
- Robert McCall, an artist known for his depictions of outer space and for a six-story mural at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, died on February 26, 2010. He was 90
- John Walker McCoubrey, who taught the history of American, English, and French art of the eighteenth to twentieth centuries at the University of Pennsylvania for more than thirty years, died on February 9, 2010, at the age of 86
- Alexander McQueen, a celebrated, innovative, and rebellious London fashion designer, died on February 11, 2010. He was 40
- Charles Moore, a photographer of the civil rights movement whose work reached millions in Life, died on March 11, 2010, at the age of 79
- Edmund “Ted” Pillsbury, who transformed the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, during his eighteen years as director, died on March 25, 2010. He was 66
- Natalie Rothstein, a curator and textiles scholar who spent her entire career at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, died on February 18, 2010, at the age of 79
- Charles Ryskamp, a former director of both the Frick Collection and the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York who also taught literature at Princeton University, died on March 26, 2010. He was 81
- Mortimer D. Sackler, a psychiatrist and co-owner of a pharmaceutical company who generously donated to the Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate Gallery, and the Jewish Museum in Berlin, among others, died on March 24, 2010. He was 93
- Norman Schureman, an artist and professor at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, died on March 20, 2010. He was 50
- Der Scutt, a modernist architect with several building in New York, including Trump Tower, died on March 14, 2010, at age 75
- John Sergeant, a British artist known for his stunning chiaroscuro in his charcoal drawings, died on January 7, 2010. He was 72
- David Slivka, a sculptor and painter from the New York School of Abstract Expressionism who helped create a death mask for the poet Dylan Thomas, died on March 28, 2010, at the age of 95
- Frank Williams, an architect of high-end hotels and condominiums in New York who mixed modern and traditional styles, died on February 25, 2010. He was 73
Read all past obituaries in the arts on the CAA website.
Recent Deaths in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — March 08, 2010
CAA recognizes the lives and achievements of the following artists, architects, curators, teachers, dealers, collectors, philanthropists, and other important figures in the visual arts who have recently died.
- Raymond Abraham, a radical Austrian architect and a professor at Pratt Institute and Cooper Union, died on March 4, 2010. He was 77
- Earl A. Barthé, a New Orleans–based architectural plasterer who created cornices, friezes, and ceiling medallions, died on January 11, 2010, at the age of 87
- Ernst Beyeler, a Swiss art dealer and collector who sold works by Monet, Cézanne, Picasso, Kandinsky, Giacometti, and more, died on February 25, 2010. He was 88
- Michael Buhler, a British artist and a teacher at the Colchester School of Art, died on October 30, 2009, at the age of 69
- Michael Cooper, a collage artist who showed his work in New York, died on January 23, 2010, at the age of 60
- Evelyn Haas, an arts philanthropist who supported the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, died on February 3, 2010. She was 92
- Zygmund Jankowski, a New England–based painter of colorful, expressionist works, died on December 31, 2009, at age 84
- Paul R. Jones, a collector of African American art who gifted hundreds of works to the University of Delaware and thousands to the University of Alabama, died on January 26, 2010, at the age of 81
- Ruth Kligman, an abstract painter and the sole survivor of Jackson Pollock’s 1956 car crash, died on March 1, 2010. She was 80
- Edward Linde, a real-estate developer and arts philanthropist who supported the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, died on January 10, 2010. He was 68
- Fritz Lohman, cofounder of the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation in Manhattan’s SoHo, died on December 31, 2009. He was 87
- Raymond Mason, a British sculptor who worked in a narrative, realist style, died on February 14, 2010, in Paris. He was 87
- Neil E. Matthew, an artist and professor emeritus at the Herron School of Art and Design, died on January 5, 2010. He was 84
- Ursula Mommens, a British potter who worked for more than eight decades, died on January 30, 2010. She was 101
- Anita V. Mozley, a curator of photography at the Stanford Museum of Art and an expert on the work of Eadweard Muybridge, died on January 23, 2010. She was 81
- Bob Noorda, a graphic designer best known for his signs for the New York City Transit Authority, died on January 11, 2010, at age 82
- Judith Taylor, a photographer, professor, and department chair at Arcadia University, died on January 26, 2010. She was 56
- Clare Weiss, a curator of public art for the New York City Parks Department, died on January 11, 2010, at the age of 43
Read all past obituaries in the arts on the CAA website.
January Obituaries in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — January 29, 2010
CAA recognizes the lives and achievements of the following artists, architects, scholars, teachers, collectors, filmmakers, authors, critics, philanthropists, and other important figures in the visual arts who have recently died. Of special note is William A. Peniston’s text on the art historian Karl Lunde, who passed away in late December.
- Paul Ahyi, a painter and sculptor based in Togo, Africa, who designed his country’s flag, died on January 4, 2010. He was 80
- Craigie Aitchison, a Scottish painter of dogs, still lifes, and religious scenes, died on December 21, 2009, at age 83
- Peggy Amsterdam, an arts advocate based in Philadelphia, died on December 26, 2009, at the age of 60. She was a founding member of the Cultural Data Project, which is establishing a national standard for reporting and tracking data on arts and cultural groups
- Donald S. Baker, Sr., a Chicago-based artist and teacher who explored African-American history in his wooded pieces, died on December 23, 2009. He was 72
- Bill Brooks, an auctioneer who founded Christie’s South Kensington auction house in London, died on December 9, 2009. He was 85
- Gertrude Whitney Conner, an artist and the granddaughter of the founder of the Whitney Museum of American Art, died on December 13, 2009
- George Dannatt, an English abstract artist and former music critic, died on November 17, 2009, at the age of 94
- Harry Diamond, a London photographer who snapped images of Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, and others in bohemian Soho of the 1960s and 1970s, died on December 3, 2009. He was 85
- Esther Gordon Dotson, an art historian and Michelangelo specialist who taught at Cornell University, died on October 28, 2009, at age 91. She received CAA’s Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award in 1986
- Michael Dwyer, a highly influential film critic for the Irish Times, died on January 1, 2010, at the age of 58
- Susan Einzing, a British illustrator known for her work on the children’s book Tom’s Midnight Garden, died on December 25, 2009, at the age of 87. She had taught for more than thirty years at the Chelsea School of Art
- Elizabeth Fallaize, a professor of French and women’s studies at St. John’s College and Oxford University, died on December 9, 2009, at age 59. She was a renowned authority on the books of Simone de Beauvoir
- William Gambini, an artist from the New York School of Abstract Expressionism who had settled in San Diego, died on January 3, 2010. He was 91
- Lydia Gasman, an inspiring art historian at the University of Virginia and an authority on the work of Pablo Picasso, died on January 15, 2010. She was 84
- Rupprecht Geiger, a German abstract painter who is credited with inventing the shaped canvas, died on December 6, 2009, at the age of 101
- Jennifer Jones, an Academy Award–winning actress who married the art collector and museum founder Norton Simon and later headed his foundation, died on December 17, 2009. She was 90
- Robert Kaufman, an artist and former chair of illustration at the Art Institute of Boston, died on January 8, 2010. He was 58
- Vivien Knight, curator of the Guildhall Art Gallery in London and a scholar of British painters of the Victorian era, died on December 18, 2009, at age 56
- Karl Lunde, an art historian who taught for many years at William Paterson University, died on December 27, 2009, at age 78. He also directed a gallery, the Contemporaries, in New York from 1956 to 1965
- Flo McGarrell, an artist and director of FOSAJ, a nonprofit art center in Jacmel, Haiti, died in the earthquake on January 11, 2010. He was 35. The Village Voice has also published a remembrance piece on the artist
- Yiannis Moralis, a Greek painter who was part of the “Generation of the ‘30s,” died on December 20, 2009. He was 93
- Kenneth Noland, an American artist who was a pioneer of Color Field painting, died on January 5, 2010, at the age of 85
- Laughlin Phillips, a former director of the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, the museum founded by his father, died on January 24, 2010. He was 85
- Antonio Pineda, an internationally exhibited silversmith from Taxco, Mexico, died on December 14, 2009, at the age of 90
- Éric Rohmer, a film critic and filmmaker of the French New Wave best known for My Night at Maud’s, died on January 11, 2010, at the age of 89
- James Rossant, an American architect, professor, and city planner who helped design Battery Park City in Manhattan, died on December 15, 2009. He was 81
- David Sarkisyan, the former director of the Shchusev State Museum of Architecture in Moscow, died on January 7, 2010, at the age of 62
- Robert H. Smith, a real-estate developer and art collector who was a former president of the National Gallery of Art’s board of trustees, died on December 29, 2009, at the age of 81. The museum has also published on Smith’s work there
- Dennis Stock, a photographer of jazz musicians and actors, who took an iconic image of James Dean, died on January 11, 2010. He was 81
- Norval White, coauthor of the AIA Guide to New York City, a guide to American architecture first published in 1968, died on December 26, 2009. He was 83
- Jack Wolgin, a Philadelphian developer, banker, and philanthropist of art, died on January 26, 2010. He was 93
- Robin Wood, a film critic who wrote about Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Author Penn, and Ingrid Bergman, died on December 18, 2009. He was 78
Read all past obituaries in the arts on the CAA website.
Karl Lunde: In Memoriam
posted by CAA — January 09, 2010
William A. Peniston is librarian at the Newark Museum in Newark, New Jersey.
![Karl Lunde](http://www.collegeart.org/images/obituaries/karllunde.jpg)
Karle Lunde
Karl Lunde, art historian and professor emeritus at William Paterson University, died peacefully at his home in New York City on December 27, 2009. He was 78.
He was born on Staten Island on November 1, 1931, to Karl and Elisa Lunde, who had emigrated to America from Norway in the 1920s. He was educated at Columbia University, where he received his BA in 1952 and MA in 1954, in the field of art history. From 1957 to 1970 he was an instructor in the School of General Studies at Columbia.
Lunde directed the Contemporaries, an art gallery on Madison Avenue devoted to modern painting and sculpture, from 1956 to 1965. While there, he was among the first to encourage the collecting and appreciation of modern fine prints and to introduce Americans to the work of Fernando Botero, Jose de Creeft, Antonio Music, and Ricardo Martinez. He was an early champion of several young American artists, now much celebrated, including Robert Kipniss, Richard Anuszkiewicz, and Lorrie Goulet.
In 1970 Lunde received his PhD in art history from Columbia University. His dissertation on Johan Christian Dahl was the first English-language study of this influential nineteenth-century Norwegian landscape painter. That same year, Lunde became a professor of art history at William Paterson University of New Jersey, where he taught until his retirement in 1996. Over the years, Lunde developed a wide-ranging repertoire of courses, including classes on American painting and sculpture, Asian art, prehistoric art, and European Neoclassicism and Romanticism. A mesmerizing lecturer, Lunde received a university award for teaching excellence. He also assembled an impressive collection of over 30,000 personally annotated color slides, which he used in teaching and which he later donated to Columbia University’s Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library.
A frequent contributor to professional and scholarly journals, Lunde also wrote several books devoted to the works of twentieth-century American artists, including Isabel Bishop (1975), Anuszkiewicz (1977), Robert Kipniss: The Graphic Work (1980), and John Day (1984). He also amassed a large and important collection of rare books, art objects, and antiques and donated paintings to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Newark Museum.
Lunde was predeceased by his partner, the artist and arts administrator Roy Moyer, and is survived by his brother, Asbjorn Lunde of New York.
December Obituaries in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — December 14, 2009
CAA recognizes the lives and achievements of the following artists, architects, scholars, teachers, collectors, and other important figures in the visual arts. Of note is John Carey’s text on the artist and author Robert Kaupelis, written especially for CAA.
- Samuel Bookatz, an artist who worked in many styles and media, including oil and tempera paintings and ranging from realist to abstract, died on November 16, 2009, at the age of 90
- John Craxton, a painter who also created scenery and costume designs for opera and ballet productions, died on November 17, 2009, at the age of 87
- Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon, who collaborated with her husband Christo Javacheff on many environmental art projects, died on November 18, 2009. She was 74
- Luciano Emmer, a distinguished Italian cinema director best known for his many art documentaries, including a film about Pablo Picasso, died on September 16, 2009, at the age of 91
- Rachel Evans-Milne, an artist of the original YBA generation, a teacher, and a counselor of children and young adults, died in November 2009 at the age of 44
- Peter Forakis, a California-based artist known for his geometric abstract sculptures, died on November 26, 2009, at age 82. Forakis was also a founder of the Park Place Gallery in New York in the early 1960s
- Walter Grallert, an architect, architectural conservator, poet, and environmentalist, died on November 27, 2009, at the age of 79
- Claude Harrison, a painter and the author of A Portrait Painter’s Handbook, died on September 13, 2009. He was 87
- Ikuo Hirayama, a painter whose subjects involved imagery of Buddhism and the Silk Road, died on December 2, 2009, at the age of 79
- Thomas Hoving, a former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, died on December 10, 2009. He was 78
- Alfred Hrdlicka, an Austrian artist whose controversial works, often containing religious themes, were done in metal, paint, and pencil, died on December 5, 2009. He was 81
- Robert Kaupelis, an artist, art teacher, and author of Learning to Draw, died on June 12, 2009, at the age of 81. John Carey contributes a special text on Kaupelis for CAA.
- Michael Kidner, an English abstract painter and sculptor whose precise and hard-edged images were often at odds with the style of the New York School, died on November 29, 2009. He was 92
- Harry C. McCray, Jr., the chairman of the board of trustees at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, died on November 28, 2009, at the age of 76
- Jan Mitchell, a collector of pre-Columbian gold pieces, which he donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a founding member of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, died on November 28, 2009. He was 96
- Daniel Rowen, a modernist architect who designed houses, apartments, and commercial spaces, died on November 17, 2009, at the age of 56
- Larry Sultan, a photographer and CalArts professor who used found images from industrial and government archives for his and Mike Mandel’s book Evidence, died on December 13, 2009. He was 63
- Anna McCullough Tyler, an art historian, teacher, and artist of abstract monoprints, died on November 29, 2009, at the age of 79
- Eddy Walker, an architect who improved housing conditions and designed and renovated community buildings in Leeds, died in November 2009. He was 59
- Harry Weinberger, a painter and collector of masks, which inspired him and appear throughout his oeuvre, died on September 10, 2009. He was 85
- Malcolm Wells, an architect, writer, and teacher whose unconventional approach included designs for earth-friendly structures, died on November 27, 2009. He was 83.
- Charis Wilson, a model and the inspiration for many of Edward Weston’s photographs, died on November 20, 2009. She was 95
Read all past obituaries in the arts on the CAA website.
Robert Kaupelis: In Memoriam
posted by CAA — December 14, 2009
John Carey, an artist and art teacher, is the editorial cartoonist for Greater Media Newspapers in central New Jersey.
First there was Kimon Nicolaïdes’s Natural Way to Draw (1941), then there was Robert Beverly Hale’s Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters (1964). Then in 1966 came Robert Kaupelis’s Learning to Draw. It was a book smart enough and egalitarian enough to employ old and modern masters’ examples along with students’ work; the point was the dynamics of application, not only the procedures of attempting realism. I discovered that book in 1972 in my high school library in Richmond, Kentucky. The book offered me and my generation what we knew but didn’t quite trust yet—the processes of mark-making, be it gentle, violent, nuanced, or bold. We had seen those applications in artworks we admired—old and new—but we hadn’t had it broken down in a philosophy with lessons before. When I saw that the author of Learning to Draw taught at New York Univeristy I knew where I wanted to go to college. Three years later I was in Kaupelis’s classroom.
Describing a great teacher is a bit like explaining a great performance. There is context, delivery, insight, and presence; there is also something else: the mark left. That mark is often as elusive as an actor’s impact, but as in theater, there are now and then a few mentors that remain definitive for us in their transformative and indelible effects. In this regard Kaupelis was a star. His energy and intelligence demanded attention, and in turn one realized that a reciprocity of that demand was expected in the presentation of one’s artwork and in the articulation of one’s efforts. It was also understood that respect came only from very hard, serious work. And it was great fun. “Change!” was something often heard in the art studio (along with Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, and Beethoven LPs); Kaupelis would shout “Change!” to models he kept busy, finding one quick pose after another as our young tentative arms began to loosen up with quick contour and gesture drawings in our search for some beauty with our own mark-making. After a few of these energized classes a Kaupelis student never looked at art in the same way again. The lessons of Learning to Draw had met the energy of the man behind it. Change had happened.
Kaupelis, who died on June 12, 2009, began teaching at NYU in 1956. He was born in Amsterdam, New York, in 1928 and educated in Buffalo and at Columbia University. In 1975 he was the subject of a chapter in a Herbert Livesey book surveying higher education called The Professors, where he was cited as one of the nation’s outstanding art educators. In 1980 Kaupelis wrote his second Watson-Guptill drawing book, Experimental Drawing, which reinforced his exuberant amalgam of stressing the fundamentals of art along with encouraging innovative and, at times, refreshingly quirky approaches: fifty nonstop drawings in three hours, drawing from out-of-focus slides, drawing the model with eyes shut. This newer book was almost as significant as Learning to Draw because at the time it was published drawing had become a very undervalued curriculum in university programs; it was a time when drawing was considered by many as old-fashioned and nearly irrelevant.
As an artist Kaupelis emerged as the New York School rose to prominence, and when nonobjective American art found its place on the world stage. His own work reflected that influence in its vibrancy and spontaneity. He was, as the critic John Canaday wrote, a seductive colorist. Eventually geometry and sharp, taped edges also merged and interacted with the wetter, looser applications. While the paintings of Kaupelis represented some of his philosophies about aesthetics, I never felt they fully matched his ability to illuminate and celebrate the art of others—the art in galleries and museums and the work of his students. He wrote and spoke of art the way Martin Scorsese speaks of movies—with a compulsive, obsessive, comprehensive insight. He thought and taught art like a man intoxicated with the anticipation of romance—that ineffable state of mind where joy and passion merge with love.
Kaupelis asked a lot from his readers and students. His main demand was: “LOOK!”—look at this: at this sepia wash Constable landscape; this Sheeler charcoal still life; this De Kooning gouache; this pen-and-ink Manet portrait; this Rauschenberg collage; this Pontormo red-chalk figure dancing off the page with a gesture line of astonishing confidence, speed, and grace! Look at this form, this line, this shade, this figure, this edge, this space! Look at your assimilation of them all! How many future artists, curators, art historians, cartoonists, animators, illustrators and teachers were asked to LOOK by Kaupelis during his thirty years at NYU and in his two important drawing books, Learning to Draw and Experimental Drawing? Thousands.
Kaupelis said drawing was anything intended as art which left a mark. He left his.