Vasari Art Codex

candle obituary schedule Jan 26, 2026 visibility 18 link 22 artists, 5 galleries

marian goodman gallery dealer dead 1234770885

Marian Goodman, the revered art dealer known for her steadfast commitment to artists and resistance to market trends, died at 97 in a Los Angeles hospital. She opened her eponymous gallery in 1977 in Midtown Manhattan with a show of Marcel Broodthaers, and over five decades represented major figures including Gerhard Richter, Julie Mehretu, William Kentridge, and Steve McQueen. Goodman began her career by founding Multiples in 1965 to publish affordable editions, and she famously kept her gallery on 57th Street while peers moved to SoHo and Chelsea.

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candle obituary schedule Jan 26, 2026 visibility 15 link 26 artists, 7 galleries

marian goodman titanic dealer of contemporary art dies at 97 2739431

Marian Goodman, the revered contemporary art dealer who built one of the most influential galleries of the past half-century, died in Los Angeles on Thursday at age 97. Goodman launched Marian Goodman Gallery in New York in 1977 after 15 years running an editions business, and over six decades she championed a roster of challenging artists including Gerhard Richter, John Baldessari, Julie Mehretu, Tacita Dean, and Pierre Huyghe. Her gallery operated on West 57th Street in Manhattan with branches in London and Paris, and she was awarded the Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the Légion of Honor by France.

newspaper Artnet News open_in_new Read original

candle obituary schedule Apr 30, 2026 visibility 32 link 13 artists, 1 gallery

Georg Baselitz obituary

Georg Baselitz, the German painter and sculptor known for his provocative, expressionistic works and his iconic upside-down paintings, has died at the age of 88. The article traces his life from his childhood in war-torn Germany, through his early career as a rebellious artist in divided Berlin, to his rise as an international art star. It highlights his 1961 manifesto poster "Pandemonium I," his rejection of American abstraction, and his controversial 1963 exhibition that was raided by police for its explicit content.

newspaper The Guardian open_in_new Read original

candle obituary schedule Dec 22, 2025 source 2 sources visibility 19 link 14 artists, 2 galleries

robert mnuchin dealer dead 2731264

Robert Mnuchin, an investment banker turned prominent art dealer, died at 92 in Bridgewater, Connecticut. After a 33-year career at Goldman Sachs, he opened C&M Arts in 1992, later partnering with Dominique Lévy to form L&M Arts, and eventually running Mnuchin Gallery. He represented major artists like Willem de Kooning, Andy Warhol, and Mark Rothko, and advised billionaires including Steve A. Cohen and Mitchell Rales. Notably, in 2019 he secured Jeff Koons's sculpture *Rabbit* (1986) for Cohen at Christie's for $91 million, a record for a living artist at auction.

newspaper Artnet News Also: ARTnews open_in_new Read original

candle obituary schedule Jan 26, 2026 visibility 15 link 11 artists, 3 galleries

legendary dealer marian goodman dies louvre shutters again amid strike morning links for january 26 2026 1234770905

Marian Goodman, the legendary art dealer known for her lifelong commitment to artists and resistance to market trends, died on Thursday in a Los Angeles hospital at age 97. She opened Marian Goodman Gallery in Midtown Manhattan in 1977 at age 49, launching with an exhibition of Marcel Broodthaers. Over five decades, she championed European artists under-recognized in the US, including Gerhard Richter, Steve McQueen, Julie Mehretu, and William Kentridge. Separately, the Louvre closed again due to a strike, the fourth closure since mid-December, while the Minneapolis Institute of Art remained closed amid ICE protests and unrest following the killing of ICU nurse Alex Pretti. Scotland is considering a government-funded basic income for artists, following Ireland's permanent scheme.

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candle obituary schedule Sep 22, 2025 visibility 8 link 11 artists, 1 gallery

art world figures remember late patron agnes gund a legend and icon 1234752937

Agnes Gund, a towering art collector and patron of New York's Museum of Modern Art, died Thursday in Manhattan at age 87. Following the announcement, artists and cultural workers including Roxana Marcoci, Glenn Ligon, Lorna Simpson, and Hoor Al Qasimi honored her memory on social media, recalling her friendship, generosity, and commitment to social justice. Gund spearheaded MoMA's 1990s expansion, founded the arts education nonprofit Studio in the School in 1977, and in 2017 sold Roy Lichtenstein's "Masterpiece" (1962) to launch the Art for Justice Fund, a $100 million grant initiative for criminal justice reform.

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candle obituary schedule Sep 22, 2025 visibility 7 link 23 artists, 1 gallery

agnes gund dead moma art collecting 1234752843

Agnes Gund, one of the most influential art patrons in the United States, has died at 87. Her collecting and philanthropy transformed the American art world, particularly at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), where she served as president from 1991 to 2002 and remained a life trustee. Gund helped fund MoMA's 2004 expansion, designed by Yoshio Taniguchi, and played a key role in bringing MoMA PS1 under the museum's aegis in 1999. She was a longtime donor of over 250 works to MoMA, including pieces by Jasper Johns, Elizabeth Murray, and Julie Mehretu, and appeared on the ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list every year from 1990 to 2018.

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candle obituary schedule Sep 8, 2025 visibility 10 link 18 artists, 4 galleries

barbara jakobson collector moma trustee dead 1234751166

Barbara Jakobson, a prominent art collector and longtime trustee of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), died at age 92 on August 25 in Manhattan due to pneumonia. Known for her extensive network of relationships with artists, dealers, and curators, she was a central figure in the New York art world for decades. Jakobson served on MoMA's board since 1974, helped found the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1968, and persuaded dealer Leo Castelli to donate Robert Rauschenberg's iconic work "Bed" (1955) to MoMA. Her Upper East Side townhouse, filled with works by artists such as Matthew Barney, Diane Arbus, and Robert Mapplethorpe, was a testament to her lifelong engagement with contemporary art.

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candle obituary schedule Jun 11, 2025 visibility 11 link 9 artists, 2 galleries

gunther uecker zero artist dead 1234744874

Günther Uecker, the German postwar artist known for hammering nails into canvases to create abstract works, died at age 95. His death was announced by his New York gallery, Lévy Gorvy Dayan, after he had been hospitalized in Düsseldorf. Uecker was a core member of the avant-garde ZERO group, founded in 1957 by Otto Piene and Heinz Mack, and his nail-based abstractions—applied to surfaces from canvases to lightboxes and TV sets—defined his practice from the 1950s onward. He participated in major exhibitions including Documenta and MoMA's 1965 "The Responsive Eye," and continued working daily in his Düsseldorf studio into his 90s.

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candle obituary schedule Jun 24, 2025 visibility 6 link 12 artists, 1 gallery

leonard lauder cubist obituary 2657181

Leonard A. Lauder, the billionaire art collector, philanthropist, and cosmetics magnate, has died at age 92. Lauder helped grow his mother Estée Lauder's namesake business into a global cosmetics empire, serving as president, CEO, and chairman. He was also one of the most significant art philanthropists of his era, donating a Cubist art collection valued at over $1 billion—including 78 works by Picasso, Braque, Léger, and Gris—to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2014, later expanded with additional works and funding for the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art. He also made the largest gift in Whitney Museum history in 2008, worth $131 million, and amassed a collection of 130,000 historic postcards promised to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

newspaper Artnet News open_in_new Read original

candle obituary schedule Mar 22, 2026 source 4 sources visibility 15 link 8 artists, 3 galleries

Agosto Machado, Artist and Activist Whose Shrine Sculptures Kept Queer History Alive, Has Died

Agosto Machado, an artist and activist central to New York's Downtown scene and a participant in the 1969 Stonewall uprising, has died following a brief illness. His gallery, Gordon Robichaux, announced his passing but, respecting his wishes, did not disclose his age. Machado was known for creating intricate shrine sculptures from collected ephemera to honor figures from his community, and one of these altars is currently featured in the 2024 Whitney Biennial.

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candle obituary schedule Mar 31, 2026 source 4 sources visibility 23 link 5 artists, 1 gallery

Melvin Edwards, pioneer of Black abstraction, 1937–2026

Melvin Edwards, a pioneering sculptor known for his steel assemblages that explored Black history and experience, has died. He was the first African-American artist to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 1970. His signature series, Lynch Fragments, began in the 1960s as a response to the civil rights movement and evolved over his lifetime to incorporate references to the Vietnam War and African cultural practices.

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candle obituary schedule Jan 26, 2026 visibility 6 link 6 artists, 2 galleries

seyni awa camara sculptor dead 1234770913

Seyni Awa Camara, a Diola sculptor from Bignona, Senegal, known for her totemic clay sculptures of stacked human bodies, has died. Her work, steeped in spirituality and inspired by a ram's horn she called a 'genie,' gained international recognition after being discovered by anthropologist Michèle Odeyé-Finzi and introduced to Europe by gallerist André Magnin. Despite her global following—including fans like Pharrell Williams and Louise Bourgeois—Camara remained largely unknown in her home country, relying on foreign buyers to sustain her practice.

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candle obituary schedule Sep 24, 2025 visibility 11 link 17 artists, 1 gallery

thomas kellein kunsthalle basel chinati foundation dead 1234753427

Thomas Kellein, a curator and art historian known for leading museums in Europe and the US, died in Berlin at age 70 following a serious illness. He directed the Kunsthalle Basel (1988–1995), organizing shows for Cindy Sherman, Mike Kelley, and Rachel Whiteread, and later led the Kunsthalle Bielefield (1996–2010) with exhibitions of Caspar David Friedrich, Jeff Koons, and others. He briefly directed the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas (2010–2012) before resigning, and subsequently led the Written Art Collection in Germany, commissioning text-based works by Lawrence Weiner, Jenny Holzer, and Qiu Zhijie.

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candle obituary schedule Aug 6, 2025 visibility 11 link 9 artists, 3 galleries

hisachika takahashi rauschenberg assistant artist dead 1234748942

Hisachika Takahashi, an artist who worked as an assistant to Robert Rauschenberg and earlier to Lucio Fontana, has died at age 85. His death was announced by Misako & Rosen, a Tokyo gallery collaborating with Hong Kong's Empty Gallery on a current exhibition of his work. Takahashi remained relatively obscure for decades despite close ties to major figures like Jasper Johns, Brice Marden, and Gordon Matta-Clark, whom he enlisted for his project "From Memory Draw a Map of the United States." He also introduced sushi and sashimi to the menu at Food, the famed artist-run restaurant in New York. In recent years, his work gained renewed attention through efforts by artist Yuki Okumura, leading to exhibitions at WIELS Centre for Contemporary Art in Brussels and Fondazione Prada in Milan.

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candle obituary schedule Jul 21, 2025 visibility 9 link 7 artists, 3 galleries

multimedia artist raymond saunders dies at 90 1234747890

Raymond Saunders, a multimedia artist known for his enigmatic, sociopolitical paintings and assemblage style, has died at age 90. His passing was announced jointly by his representing galleries—Casemore, Andrew Kreps, and David Zwirner—on Instagram. Saunders's work often explored the Black American experience through extensive use of black paint and complex narratives, as articulated in his influential 1967 essay "Black Is a Color." His first career-spanning retrospective, "Flowers from a Black Garden," recently closed at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, his hometown. Saunders had a long teaching career in the Bay Area and received numerous honors, including a Rome Prize Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

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candle obituary schedule May 5, 2026 visibility 6 link 24 artists, 2 galleries

Remembering Pat Steir, one of the 20th century’s late-blooming great artists

Pat Steir, the acclaimed American painter known for her Waterfall series, died in Manhattan on 25 March at age 87. The article traces her career from early struggles as a freelance illustrator and art director, through her transformative encounter with Sol LeWitt in the early 1970s, to her eventual emergence as a major figure in contemporary painting. It highlights her teaching at CalArts and Parsons, her involvement with feminist and artist-run institutions like Heresies and Printed Matter, and the pivotal moment in the early 1980s when she cut up a reproduction of a Jan Brueghel the Elder flower painting into 64 panels, repainting each in a different historical style.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

candle obituary schedule Dec 10, 2025 visibility 26 link 129 artists, 27 galleries

in memoriam 2024 2589026

Artnet News published an alphabetical in memoriam list commemorating art world figures who died in 2024, including printmaker Norman Ackroyd, museum director Hope Alswang, sculptor Carl Andre, curator and writer David Anfam, painter Frank Auerbach, and gallerist Patti Astor. Each entry includes a brief tribute highlighting their key achievements and contributions, such as Ackroyd's meticulous printmaking techniques, Alswang's diversification of the Norton Museum of Art's collection, Andre's foundational role in Minimalism, Anfam's influential scholarship on Abstract Expressionism, Auerbach's distinctive painterly style, and Astor's pioneering East Village gallery.

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candle obituary schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 7 link 11 artists, 1 gallery

frank gehry architect obituary 2724729

Frank Gehry, the renowned American architect, has died at age 96 in his Santa Monica home after a brief respiratory illness. He is survived by his wife, three children, and a vast portfolio of iconic buildings including the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, and the 8 Spruce skyscraper in New York. The article traces his life from his birth in Toronto in 1929, his education at USC and Harvard, his early career at Gruen Associates, and his rise to fame through innovative, sculptural designs that transformed modern architecture.

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candle obituary schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 10 link 9 artists, 6 galleries

david lynch obituary 2472413

David Lynch, the acclaimed artist, filmmaker, and musician known for his surreal and unsettling aesthetic, has died at age 78. His family announced his passing on Facebook, noting he had been battling emphysema after a lifetime of smoking. Lynch's career spanned over four decades, producing iconic films like *Blue Velvet* (1986) and *Inland Empire* (2006), as well as the hit TV series *Twin Peaks* (1990–91). Beyond cinema, he maintained a rich visual art practice, creating figurative paintings, assemblages, and photographs that echoed his cinematic themes of home, light, and dream logic.

newspaper Artnet News open_in_new Read original

candle obituary schedule May 4, 2026 visibility 10 link 6 artists, 5 galleries

Raghu Rai obituary

Raghu Rai, the renowned Indian photographer known for capturing his country's post-independence history through singular, enduring images, has died at age 83 from cancer. Rai's career spanned six decades, during which he documented events from the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster to the Bangladesh war of independence, and photographed figures including Indira Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and the Dalai Lama. He joined Magnum Photos in 1977 after being invited by Henri Cartier-Bresson, and worked as a staff photographer for the Statesman and as picture editor for India Today.

newspaper The Guardian open_in_new Read original

candle obituary schedule Apr 20, 2026 visibility 22 link 3 artists, 3 galleries

James Hayward, West Coast Painter with a Cult Following, Dies at 82

James Hayward, a West Coast painter known for his thickly applied monochrome abstractions, died on April 16 at the age of 82. His work, which developed a dedicated following among fellow artists, was characterized by a deliberate, eccentric process that set it apart from other minimalist painting of his era.

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candle obituary schedule Mar 31, 2026 visibility 16 link 7 artists, 2 galleries

melvin edwards sculptor dead 1234779467

Melvin Edwards, the pioneering sculptor known for his powerful steel assemblages and "Lynch Fragments" series, has died at the age of 88 in Baltimore. Edwards was a trailblazer who reframed Minimalism by infusing it with political and cultural weight, becoming the first Black sculptor to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum in 1970. His work utilized industrial materials like chains and barbed wire to address histories of enslavement, anti-Black violence, and global conflict while maintaining a sophisticated abstract language.

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candle obituary schedule Mar 25, 2026 visibility 15 link 5 artists, 1 gallery

thaddeus mosley sculptor dead 1234775273

Thaddeus Mosley, the acclaimed American sculptor known for his monumental wood abstractions, has died at the age of 99 in Pittsburgh. Throughout a career spanning seven decades, Mosley transformed salvaged walnut, sycamore, and cherry wood into curvaceous, gravity-defying forms that balanced immense weight with a sense of lightness. Though he was a long-standing pillar of the Pittsburgh creative community, he achieved widespread national recognition and major museum representation only in his 90s.

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candle obituary schedule Mar 25, 2026 visibility 14 link 11 artists, 3 galleries

agosto machado artist activist dead whitney biennial 1234778425

Agosto Machado, a seminal figure in the Downtown New York art scene and a veteran of the Stonewall uprising, has died following a brief illness. Known as a 'pre-Stonewall street queen,' Machado transitioned from a community activist and archivist to a recognized artist whose intricate altar sculptures are currently featured in the 2024 Whitney Biennial. His work, which utilizes found objects and ephemera to create shrines for queer icons and AIDS victims, serves as a vital act of 'ancestor worship' and historical preservation for a community often marginalized by mainstream institutions.

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candle obituary schedule Feb 27, 2026 visibility 12 link 8 artists, 1 gallery

san francisco dealer rena bransten dead at 92 1234774731

Rena Bransten, a foundational figure in the San Francisco art scene, has died at the age of 92 following a heart attack and a subsequent fall. Since founding her eponymous gallery in 1975, Bransten became a champion for California-based artists, with a pioneering focus on women and artists of color. Her gallery represented major figures including John Waters, Dawoud Bey, and Fred Wilson, evolving from its origins in ceramics to a multidisciplinary powerhouse that recently transitioned to a nomadic model.

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candle obituary schedule Jan 12, 2026 visibility 9 link 7 artists, 1 gallery

beatriz gonzalez painter dead 1234769419

Beatriz González, a pioneering Colombian painter and one of the most important Latin American artists of the 20th century, died on Friday at her home in Bogotá at age 93. Her Zurich-based representative, Galerie Peter Kilchmann, announced her passing but did not specify a cause. González first gained fame in the 1960s by remaking art historical masterpieces by Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci in a deliberately garish color palette, later pivoting in the 1980s to explicitly political works critiquing government violence in Colombia. Her career included major exhibitions at Documenta 14 in 2017, the Museum of Modern Art's 2019 rehang, and a retrospective that premiered at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo and will travel to the Barbican Centre in London and the Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo.

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candle obituary schedule Dec 21, 2025 visibility 10 link 4 artists, 1 gallery

arnulf rainer dead 1234767718

Arnulf Rainer, the Austrian artist known for his relentless experimentation and his signature "overpaintings" (Übermalungen), died on December 18 at age 96 at his home in Austria. His death was confirmed by his gallery, Thaddaeus Ropac. Over seven decades, Rainer produced abstract works tied to the Art Informel movement, layering dense pigment over existing images—first his own, then works by artists like Emilio Vedova. He also created "blind drawings" and overpainted photographic self-portraits in series such as "Face Farces" and "Body Poses." His career included major exhibitions at Documenta, the Venice Biennale, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Centre Pompidou, and he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1981 to 1995.

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candle obituary schedule Dec 17, 2025 visibility 11 link 12 artists, 1 gallery

art green founding figure of chicago harry who obituary 1234739912

Arthur “Art” Green, a key Chicago Imagist painter and original member of the Hairy Who, died at age 83 in April. The news was announced by Garth Greenan Gallery in New York, which represented him. Green rose to prominence in the mid-1960s alongside five fellow School of the Art Institute of Chicago graduates, exhibiting together as the Hairy Who from 1966 to 1969. Their work offered a humorous, hallucinatory take on American culture, blending Surrealism, Art Brut, and advertising conventions. Green developed a rich personal iconography featuring ice cream cones, wood grain, flames, and fingernails, and taught for decades, influencing a generation of artists.

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candle obituary schedule Nov 13, 2025 visibility 6 link 5 artists, 1 gallery

mel leipzig painter dead 1234761568

Mel Leipzig, a painter known for his intensely detailed, realistic portraits of everyday people and places, died on November 1 at age 90. Over a career spanning more than five decades, the Brooklyn-born artist taught at Mercer County Community College from 1968 to 2013, founded the Trenton Artist Workshop Association (TAWA) in 1979, and never painted from photographs, instead practicing what he called 'designing with reality.' His work is held by major institutions including the Whitney Museum, the National Academy Museum, and the New Jersey State Museum.

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