CAA News Today

CAA recognizes the lives and achievements of the following artists, designers, scholars, critics, and other men and women whose work has had a significant impact on the visual arts. Of special note is Jean Miller’s text on Todd DeVriese, written especially for CAA.

• Todd DeVriese, an artist, educator, and dean of the College of Fine Arts and Humanities at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, died on November 15, 2010, while at a conference in India. He was 49
• Helen Escobedo, a Mexican sculptor who explored modern materials in site-specific, outdoor, and public locations, died on September 16, 2010, at the age of 76. She was also a curator and director for several university-based and national museums and galleries
• S. Neil Fujita, a graphic designer, illustrator, and painter who worked on numerous jazz album covers for Columbia Records in the 1950s and on book jackets with his own firm, died on October 23, 2010, at age 89. He also taught for many years at the Philadelphia Museum College of Art, Pratt Institute, and Parsons School of Design.
• Robert Goodnough, a painter from the second generation of Abstract Expressionists whose diverse body of work touched on many modernist styles, died on October 2, 2010, at age 92. He showed his work at Tibor de Nagy and André Emmerich galleries in New York
• Kathryn Hixson, an art critic, former editor of the New Art Examiner, and adjunct professor in various departments at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, died on November 7, 2010, at the age of 55. She also curated several exhibitions in Texas and Illinois
• Eric Joisel, a French artist who created innovative, complex sculptures in origami, died on October 10, 2010, at the age of 53. His works can be found in the Louvre and in private collections worldwide
• Thomas Leavitt, founding director of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, died on October 14, 2010, at the age of 80. He also organized more than one hundred exhibitions, including Earth Art with Willoughby Sharp in 1969, and wrote numerous catalogue essays
• Jack Levine, an American painter of Social Realism whose works contained biting satire and caricature, died on November 8, 2010, at the age of 95. His works can be found in major museums nationwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art
• Bernd Lohaus, a German artist who created his sculptures with blocks of stone and rugged beams of Azobe wood, died on November 4, 2010. Born in 1940, he studied under Joseph Beuys and settled in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1966
• Nathan Oliveira, a Bay Area painter who emerged in the 1950s as an Abstract Expressionist but later embraced figuration and landscape, died on November 13, 2010, at age 81. He was a longtime professor of art at Stanford University
• Rozsika Parker, a pioneering British feminist, art historian, psychotherapist, and author of The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and Making of the Feminine, died on November 5, 2010, at the age of 64. She collaborated with Griselda Pollock on two important books: Old Mistresses and Framing Women: Art and the Women’s Movement 1970–1985
• Chuck Ramirez, an artist and graphic designer based in San Antonio who worked in large-scale photography and site-specific sculptural installations, died on November 6, 2010. He was 48
• Sylvia Sleigh, a celebrated figurative painter and devoted feminist who helped found SOHO20 Gallery in 1973, died on October 24, 2010, at the age of 94. Born in Wales but based in New York since 1961, Sleigh received CAA’s Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2008
• Miriam Wosk, an illustrator who designed the first cover of Ms. magazine in 1971 but later concentrated on painting, drawing, and collage, died on November 5, 2010. She was 63

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

CAA recognizes the lives and achievements of the following artists, scholars, curators, architects, filmmakers, museum directors, and other important figures in the visual arts.

• Ralph T. Coe, former director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and a collector and curator of Native American art, died on September 14, 2010, at the age of 81. Among his pioneering exhibitions are Sacred Circles: 2,000 Years of North American Indian Art (1976) and Lost and Found Traditions: Native American Art, 1965–1985 (1986)
• Tony Curtis, an actor in such films as The Defiant Ones and Some Like It Hot who was also known for Surrealist-inspired paintings, died on September 29, 2010. He was 85
• Robin Gibson, a curator at the National Portrait Gallery in London for his entire career, died on August 9, 2010, age 66. He established the museum’s photography department, focused on twentieth-century works, and even commissioned pieces for the collection, all while organizing exhibitions and authoring catalogues
• Jill Johnston, a feminist, dance critic for the Village Voice, and author of Lesbian Nation, died on September 18, 2010, at the age of 81. She also contributed to Art in America and wrote the controversial book Jasper Johns: Privileged Information
• Stephen Pace, a painter whose early work in the style of the New York School developed into expressionist-informed depictions of figures and landscapes, died on September 23, 2010, age 91. Emerging in the early 1950s in New York, he also taught art at Pratt Institute, Bard College, and American University
• Arthur Penn, a movie, television, and stage director whose innovative 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde paved the way for the New American Cinema, died on September 28, 2010. He was 88
• Rhonda Saad, an art historian and curator who was a doctoral student at Northwestern University, died on September 11, 2010, at the age of 31. The Association for Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey, a CAA affiliated society for which she was treasurer, has established the Rhonda A. Saad Prize for Best Graduate Paper in Arab Art in her honor
• Johannes Spalt, an Austrian architect who cofounded the group Arbeitsgruppe 4 that brought modernism to rural Austria, died on October 2, 2010. He was 90
• Giorgio Torraca, a professor at the University of Rome La Sapienza and former deputy director of the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property, died on September 25, 2010. Born in 1927, he developed programs and courses on the conservation of masonry, mosaics, and earthen materials for nonscientists

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

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.