CAA News Today

In its regular roundup of obituaries, CAA recognizes the lives and achievements of the following artists, designers, architects, photographers, dealers, filmmakers, and other men and women whose work has had a significant impact on the visual arts. Included this month are the major twentieth-century artists John Chamberlain and Helen Frankenthaler, who both died in December 2011.

• Eve Arnold, a photojournalist and writer who was the first woman to join the Magnum Photo agency, died on January 4, 2012, at age 99. Beginning her career in the late 1940s, Arnold photographed celebrities, documented the McCarthy hearings and the civil rights movement, and did extensive work in Britain, China, and Russia.
• John Buchanan, director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco who brought in a string of successive hit shows, including Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs and a survey of masterpieces by Pablo Picasso from the Musée National in Paris, died on December 30, 2011. He was 58 years old
• John Chamberlain, a sculptor of found metal whose work bridged Pop art, Abstract Expressionism, and Minimalism, passed away on December 21, 2011, at the age of 84. Chamberlain first used car parts and then pieces of raw galvanized steel to create his sculptures, whose form and colors offered a dystopian take on the automobile as American Dream
• Niles Ford, a New York–based dancer and choreographer whose work combined elements of ballet, jazz, and modern dance while embedding themes of political and social activism, died on January 14, 2012. He was 52.
• Helen Frankenthaler, an abstract painter whose stain technique led to the development of the Color Field movement, passed away on December 27, 2011, at age 83. Once married to Robert Motherwell, Frankenthaler was an active member of the downtown New York art community in the 1950s and 1960s and had major solo exhibitions at the Jewish Museum (1960), the Whitney Museum of American Art (1969), and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1998)
• Andrew Geller, a postwar architect of prefabricated homes who designed the room in which Nikita Kruschev and Richard Nixon had their famous Kitchen Debate, died on December 25, 2011. He was 87
• Iris Gill, a painter inspired by nature who was a member of the San Diego branch of the Women’s Caucus for Art, died on January 2, 2012. She was 41 years old
• Jan Groover, an American photographer who had lived in France since 1991 and who produced painterly still lifes with formalist concerns, died on January 1, 2012, at age 68. In 1987, Groover became one of the first women to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York
• John McWhinnie, a dealer and collector of rare twentieth-century books and ephemera and the director of Glenn Horowitz Bookseller in New York, died on January 6, 2012. He was 43
• Robert Nelson, an avant-garde filmmaker active in the San Francisco art scene of the 1950s and 1960s, died on January 9, 2012, at the age of 81. Known for the wit and playful energy he brought to the world of underground filmmaking, Nelson was the creator of Plastic Haircut (1963), Oh Dem Watermelons (1965), and Grateful Dead (1967–68)
• Bill Radawec, an eclectic multimedia artist based in Los Angeles and Cleveland whose recent work consisted of colorful paintings inspired by manufacturer house paint chips and the work of Ellsworth Kelly and Brice Marden, died on July 5, 2011, at age 59. Well-loved for his generosity and support of other artists, Radawec organized art shows in major museums and artist-run galleries
• James Rizzi, a New York–based Pop artist known for his three-dimensional graphic constructions, died on December 26, 2011, at age 61. Playful, colorful, and full of childlike energy, Rizzi’s work included designs for tourist guides and German postage stamps, as well as the cover artwork for Tom Tom Club’s first album in 1980 and two music videos for the band
• Garrison Roots, a public artist, sculptor, and chair of the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he had taught since 1982, died on December 21, 2011. He was 59 years old
• Anne Tyng, a pioneering female architect and architectural theorist who had a professional and personal relationship with Louis Kahn, died on December 27, 2011, at age 91. Born in Jiangxi, China, Tyng was one of the first women to graduate from Harvard’s architecture school, in 1944
• Haydee Venegas, an art critic and educator who served as vice president of the International Association of Art Critics, died on December 31, 2011. She was 61
• John C. Wessel, a New York–based art dealer who championed gay artists in the 1980s and 1990s, passed away on December 9, 2011. Born in 1941, Wessel also served as regional representative for the National Endowment for the Arts from 1977 to 1984
• Eva Zeisel, a renowned ceramic tableware artist and designer, died on December 30, 2011, at the age of 105. After emigrated to the United States from Vienna in 1938, Zeisel began a celebrated teaching career at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York

Read all past obituaries in the arts in CAA News, which include special texts written for CAA. Please send links to published obituaries to Christopher Howard, CAA managing editor, for the February/March listing.

In its regular roundup of obituaries, CAA recognizes the lives and achievements of the following artists, scholars, curators, collectors, and other men and women whose work has had a significant impact on the visual arts. Of special note is a text on Nancy Shelby Schuller, a curator of visual resources, published on the CAA website.

• Jerry W. Bates, a photographer who managed the Graphics Lab at Virginia Commonwealth University for thirty years, passed away on September 9, 2011. He was 63
• Adrian Berg, a British landscape painter and member of the Royal Academy who was inspired by Claude Monet, died on October 22, 2011, at the age of 82. The Serpentine Gallery in London hosted a survey of his work in 1986
• Peter Campbell, a writer, editor, illustrator, and book designer who served as the resident art critic and designer for the London Review of Books for more than thirty years, died on October 25, 2011. He was 74 years old
• Manon Cleary, a realist painter and influential professor of art based in Washington, DC, known primarily for her frankly autobiographical subject matter, passed away on November 26, 2011, at age 69. The Washington Arts Museum hosted a retrospective of her work in 2006
• Benjamin “Ben” Day, who taught graphic design and visual communications at Louisiana Tech University, Missouri State University, Boston University, and Virginia Commonwealth University, died on July 14, 2011. He was 68
• Vittorio de Seta, an Italian filmmaker and screenwriter whose work was celebrated in a 2006 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, died on November 29, 2011. He was 88
• Norton T. Dodge, a professor of Soviet economics at the University of Maryland and St. Mary’s College of Maryland and the owner of the world’s largest collection of Soviet dissident art, now housed at Rutgers University, died on November 5, 2011. He was 84
• Alan Haydon, an arts administrator who served on Arts Council England and the London Arts Board, died on October 9, 2011, at age 61. He also directed the De La Warr Pavillion, a contemporary art center in East Sussex, from 1999 to 2011
• Mary Hunt Kahlenberg, an authority on antique and ethnographic textiles and a former curator and head of the Department of Costume and Textiles at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, died on October 27, 2011. She was 71 years old
• Keo Kinal, a Cambodian archaeologist at the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh, died on November 13, 2011. Born in 1973, he had taught the history of art and architecture after finishing a master’s degree at the Tokyo National University of the Arts
• Gerald Laing, an English Pop artist active in New York who depicted current events and celebrities such as Kate Moss and Amy Winehouse in large-scale painting and sculpture, passed away on November 23, 2011. He was 75
• Jon Lovelace, a financier, philanthropist, and a founding board member of the California Institute of the Arts, died on November 16, 2011. He was 84 years old
• Cargill MacMillan Jr., an heir to the Cargill family’s agricultural business and a benefactor who gifted many works to the Palm Springs Arts Museum in California, died on November 14, 2011, at the age of 84
• William McKeown, an Irish painter of ethereal abstractions who represented Northern Ireland in the 2005 Venice Biennale, died on October 25, 2011. He was 49
• Pat Passlof, an artist of the New York School, the wife of the painter Milton Resnick, and a longtime faculty member of the College of Staten Island, died on November 13, 2011. She was 83
• Nancy Shelby Schuller, who spent thirty-four years as curator of the Visual Resources Collection at the University of Texas at Austin, died on November 8, 2011, at age 71. CAA has published a special text on her
• Dugald Stermer, an illustrator, designer, and teacher who served as art director for the left-wing magazine Ramparts in the 1960s and later as chairman of the Department of Illustration at California College of the Arts, died on December 2, 2011. He was 74
• Bruno Weber, a Swiss architect and sculptor known for his multimedia sculpture park in Dietikon, Switzerland, died on October 24, 2011. He was 80 years old
• George Whitman, the New Jersey–born founder and owner of Shakespeare & Company, a celebrated bookstore in Paris, died on December 14, 2011, at the age of 98

Read all past obituaries in the arts in CAA News, which include special texts written for CAA. Please send links to published obituaries to Christopher Howard, CAA managing editor, for the January listing.

In its semimonthly roundup of obituaries, CAA recognizes the lives and achievements of the following artists, scholars, curators, collectors, and other men and women whose work has had a significant impact on the visual arts. Of special note is a text from Patricia Mainardi on Filiz Burhan for CAA.

• Julie Apap, a ceramicist who lived, worked, and taught art in Malta, died on March 16, 2011. She was 62 years old
• Martha Brincklow, the founder of the International Studies Program at Saint Petersburg College in Florida who led students on tours of the Louvre, the Sistine Chapel, and Tate Gallery, died on January 14, 2011. She was 95
• Filiz Burhan, a long-time professor of art history at the American University in Paris whose work opened new directions in the study of Symbolism, died on May 23, 2011, at 60 years of age. Patricia Mainardi has written a special text on her for CAA
• Robert Fluhr, an artist who taught for thirty years in the Philadelphian high schools and led sculpture classes for the blind and visually impaired at the Allens Lane Art Center, died on June 20, 2011. He was 84
• Hoda Garnett, an Egyptian-born news photographer who began her career in the US Navy in the 1950s and whose work appeared in Life magazine, died on October 13, 2011. She was 84 years old
• Beatrice Gersh, an arts patron in Los Angeles who was instrumental in founding the Museum of Contemporary Art in her city, died on October 9, 2011, at age 87
• Frank B. Gettings, who spent thirty years as a curator at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, died on August 4, 2011. He was 80 years old
• Shifra Goldman, a political activist and a pioneering scholar of Latin American and Chicano art who taught for twenty years in southern Californian institutions, died on September 11, 2011. She was 85
• Addie James, a folk artist based in North Carolina who created colorful paintings of family life in the South, died on July 17, 2011. She was 67
• Szeto Keung, a Chinese American artist based in New York who showed his mixed-media work extensively in Taiwan and Hong Kong, died on September 5, 2011. He was 62
• Friedrich Kittler, a German media theorist who taught internationally, most recently at the European Graduate School in Switzerland, died on October 18, 2011, at age 68
• Mathieu Lefèvre, a Canadian artist who lived and worked in Brooklyn, died on October 18, 2011. He was 30
• Robert Loughlin, an artist and scavenger who advised collectors in modern design and furniture, including Andy Warhol, died on September 27, 2011. He was 62 years old
• Ruth Mellinkoff, a historian of medieval art and an author of cookbooks, died on Febuary 26, 2011. She was 86 years old
• James More, a Scottish design-studio manager and an emeritus professor of design at Northumbria University in England, died on September 27, 2011, at age 65
• William Mostyn-Owen, an artist historian who specialized in the Italian Renaissance and served as Bernard Berenson’s bibliographer, died on May 2, 2011. He was 81 years old
• Sadamasa Motonaga, a Japanese painter who began his career in the Gutai movement, died on October 3, 2011. He was 88
• Werner Muensterberger, a psychoanalyst, art historian, and collector of African art, died on March 6, 2011. He had reached the age of 98
• John Neuhart, an American designer who taught at the University of California, Los Angeles, and who, with his wife Marilyn, was a colleague of Ray and Charles Eames, died on September 19, 2011. He was 82
• Malcolm H. Preston, an art critic and historian who taught for many years at Hofstra University, died on July 10, 2011, at age 91. He was also a figurative and landscape painter
• Richard Randell, a sculptor and filmmaker who taught art at Stanford University, died on May 25, 2011, at the age of 81. He also helped found the World of Languages, which preserved and studied disappearing Kenyan and Tanzanian song, poetry, and dance
• Jehangir Sabavala, a pioneering artist in postcolonial India whose work was always at odds with popular contemporaneous styles, died on September 2, 2011. He was 89
• Pamela Hemenway Simpson, a historian of art and architecture at Washington and Lee University who served as president of the Southeastern College Art Conference, died on October 4, 2011, at the age of 65
• Bernard Smith, a renowned Australian intellectual and author whose academic leadership helped form the discipline of art history in his country, died on September 2, 2011. He was 94 years old
• Ronald Thomason, a Texan sculptor, designer, and teacher, died on August 4, 2011, on his 80th birthday
• Jacques Vilain, a French curator at the Musée Rodin in Paris who later became its director, died on September 23, 2011
• Richard DeLos Wells, a professor of art, art history, and American studies at Brigham Young University in Hawai‘i, died on July 26, 2011, at the age of 63

Read all past obituaries in the arts in CAA News, which include special texts written for CAA. Please send links to published obituaries to Christopher Howard, CAA managing editor, for the December listing.