CAA News Today

In its regular roundup of obituaries, CAA recognizes the lives and achievements of the following artists, historians, curators, educators, and others whose work has significantly influenced the visual arts. Notable deaths this summer and fall include the artists Stephen Antonakos and Mark Gottsegen and the Renaissance art historian Mark Zucker.

• Stephen Antonakos, an artist known for abstract sculpture that incorporates neon lighting, died on August 17, 2013, at age 86
• Jack Beal, an American painter of nudes, still lifes, and murals whose representational aesthetic ushered in the New Realism of the 1960s and 1970s, died on August 29, 2013, at the age of 82
• John Bellany, a Scottish figurative painter whose retrospective was held last year at the Scottish National Gallery, passed away on August 28, 2013. He was 71
• Marion Bloch, an art collector and philanthropist, died on September 24, 2013, at age 83. The wife of the founder of H&R Block, she was a longtime supporter of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City
• Michael K. Brown, a longtime curator of the Bayou Bend Collection, part of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, passed away on September 8, 2013. He was 60 years old
• Red Burns, an arts professor and chair of the Interactive Telecommunications Program in the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, died on August 23, 2013. Known as the “godmother of Silicon Alley,” she was 88 years old
• Anne Christopherson, an English painter renowned for her depictions of the Thames River, died on August 15, 2013. She was 91
• Alvin Eisenman, the founding director of Yale University’s graduate program in graphic design, died on September 3, 2013. He was 92
• Cecil Fergerson, a former curator for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and a community activist, died on September 18, 2013, at age 82. Fergeson started working for the museum in 1948 as a janitor and became a preparator before joining the curatorial staff
• Juan Garcia de Oteyza, an editor, publisher, and diplomat who served as director of Aperture Foundation from 2008 to 2010, died on August 26, 2013. He was 51
• Mark Gottsegen, a painter and the founder of Art Materials Information and Education Network (AMIEN), passed away on September 24, 2013. He had been a professor at the University of North Carolina in Greenboro and was the author of The Painter’s Handbook
• Alfred Rozelaar Green, a painter who spent the 1930s in Paris and who later founded the Anglo-French Art Centre in London, has died. He was 95 years old
• Ellen Lanyon, a painter and printmaker based in New York whose work has been described as a “unique blend of realism and the surreal,” died on October 7, 2013. She was 86
• Frank Martinez, an artist and muralist based in Los Angeles, died on August 17, 2013. He was 89
• Michael McManus, former chief curator of the Laguna Art Museum in California, died on August 10, 2013, at age 60. He had taught at California State University, Fullerton, and the Laguna College of Art and Design
• Mario Montez, a drag performer and film actor who was part of Andy Warhol’s entourage of superstars, died on September 26, 2013. He was 78
• Steve Ross, a literary scholar and the director of the Office of Challenge Grants at the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1995 to 2013, died on August 21, 2013. He was 70
• Sadegh Tirafkan, an Iranian artist who blended photography and other artistic media in innovative ways, passed away on May 9, 2013. He was 47
• Arturo Vega, a Mexican artist who designed graphics for the Ramones, including the band’s famous circular logo, died on June 7, 2013. He was 65 years old
• Gillian Wakely, associate director of education for the University of Pennsylvania Museum, died on August 14, 2013, age 67. She had worked for her institution for forty years
• Kathleen Watkins, an English curator and secretary of the Penwith Society of Arts in St. Ives, Cornwall, for forty-six years, died on September 5, 2013. She was 80 years old
• George Weissbort, a traditional painter of portraits, landscapes, and still lifes who was based in London for decades, died on July 9, 2013. He was age 85
• John Wright, a British artist of many talents—he was a painter, professor, writer, designer, and filmmaker—died on July 9, 2013. He was 82 years old
• Mark Zucker, a Renaissance art historian and a professor in the College of Art and Design at Louisiana State University for thirty-two years, died on August 3, 2013. He was 69

Read all past obituaries in the arts in CAA News, which include special texts written for CAA. Please send links to published obituaries, or your completed texts, to Christopher Howard, CAA managing editor, for the next list.