marian goodman titanic dealer of contemporary art dies at 97

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.

Éliane Radigue, Electronic Music Pioneer, Dies at 94

eliane radigue dead electronic music

Éliane Radigue, a pioneering French composer and electronic music visionary, has died at the age of 94 in Paris. A student of musique concrète founders Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, Radigue became renowned for her meditative, long-form compositions created primarily on the ARP 2500 modular synthesizer. Her work, deeply influenced by Tibetan Buddhism, focused on the subtle, sculptural qualities of sound and "barely perceptible" sonic shifts.

seyni awa camara sculptor dead

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.

Sculptor Thaddeus Mosley dies at 99.

Sculptor Thaddeus Mosley dies at 99.

Sculptor Thaddeus Mosley, a self-taught artist renowned for his monumental abstract wood sculptures, has died at the age of 99. Working for decades in his Pittsburgh basement, Mosley used locally sourced felled trees and traditional hand tools to create dynamic, asymmetrical forms that channeled both modernist principles and African artistic traditions. His prolific career, which began in his 30s, gained significant institutional recognition only in his later decades, culminating in a major 2022 solo exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

lucia di luciano painter dead

Lucia Di Luciano, an Italian painter associated with the 1960s Arte Programmata movement, has died at age 93. Her death was announced by her Milan gallery, 10 A.M. Art, without specifying a cause. Di Luciano was known for her hand-painted, gridded black-and-white abstractions that mimicked computer-generated patterns, made with house paint and acrylic. Despite painting for nearly eight decades, she only gained wider international recognition in 2022 when her work was included in the main exhibition of the Venice Biennale, curated by Cecilia Alemani. Her career saw a late surge, with appearances at Tate Modern's "Electric Dreams" exhibition, art fairs like Frieze Masters and Independent 20th Century, and a solo show at Herald St. in London. The Maxxi museum in Rome is organizing a retrospective set to open in 2027.

henrike naumann obituary

German installation artist Henrike Naumann has passed away at the age of 41 following a battle with cancer. At the time of her death, Naumann was preparing for the pinnacle of her career: representing Germany at the upcoming 61st Venice Biennale. The German pavilion organizers have confirmed that they will work closely with her studio team to realize her finalized artistic vision for the exhibition as planned this May.

martin parr dead photographer magnum

Martin Parr, the acclaimed British photographer known for his wry, colorful images of tourists and leisure culture, died on December 6 at his home in Bristol, England, at age 73. His death was announced by the Martin Parr Foundation, which noted he had been diagnosed with myeloma in 2021. Parr was a longtime member of Magnum Photos and published countless photobooks, shot fashion campaigns for Vogue and Gucci, and created iconic series such as "The Last Resort" (1983–85) and "Small World" (1987–94). A retrospective themed around climate change and overtourism is planned for 2025 at the Jeu de Paume in Paris.

bill dilworth new york earth room caretaker dead

Bill Dilworth, the longtime caretaker of Walter De Maria's "The New York Earth Room," died on December 10, 2024, at age 70 from a stroke. His death was reported by The New York Times on Saturday. Dilworth tended the 1977 installation—280,000 pounds of dirt piled two feet high—for 35 years, from 1989 until his retirement in 2024. Managed by the Dia Art Foundation, the piece has been open to the public since 1980 and became a cult favorite, even inspiring a lookalike in a music video by pop star Lorde. Dilworth, an abstract painter, also maintained another De Maria work, "The Broken Kilometer," through his wife Patti, who served as its caretaker.

Valie Export, Avant-Garde Icon and Feminist Trailblazer, Dies at 85

Valie Export, the Austrian avant-garde artist known for her radical feminist performances, films, and sculptures, has died at age 85. Her gallery, Thaddaeus Ropac, announced her death, noting her groundbreaking work in the 1960s and 1970s introduced a new form of embodied feminism to Europe. Export, born Waltraud Lehner in Linz, Austria, changed her name in 1967 and became known for provocative works such as "Aktionshose: Genitalpanik" (1969) and "Tap and Touch Cinema" (1968–1971), which challenged voyeurism and the sexualization of women's bodies. She also co-founded the Austrian Filmmakers Cooperative in 1968 and was commissioned by the Austrian Broadcast Corporation for her film "Facing the Family" (1971).

Remembering F. John Sierra, Valie Export, and Mary Lovelace O’Neal

This week's In Memoriam column honors seven figures from the art world who recently passed away, including muralist and Chicano art champion F. John Sierra (1942–2026), Austrian feminist performance and film artist Valie Export (1940–2026), and painter and Civil Rights activist Mary Lovelace O'Neal (1942–2026). Also remembered are Maltese coin and monument designer Noel Galea Bason (1955–2026), Iranian-Irish gallerist and polymath Jamshid MirFenderesky (1947–2026), Philadelphia painter and educator Peter Paone (1936–2026), and Italian sculptor and installation artist Remo Salvadori (1947–2026). Each entry highlights their key contributions, from founding institutions and participating in major biennials to shaping cultural identity and challenging societal norms through art.

robert grosvenor sculptor minimalism dead

Robert Grosvenor, a sculptor known for his idiosyncratic works that initially aligned with Minimalism before evolving into unclassifiable forms, died in New York at age 88. His death was confirmed by Paula Cooper Gallery, with no cause given. Grosvenor gained prominence in the 1960s through exhibitions like "Primary Structures" at the Jewish Museum and later created spare, industrial sculptures ranging from ceiling-piercing steel forms to altered car-like objects and works incorporating creosote and water. He appeared in two editions of Documenta and the 2022 Venice Biennale, and a survey of his work opened at the Fridericianum museum in Kassel just days before his death.

Remembering Koyo Kouoh, one of the most influential curators in the global art world, and one of its most original thought leaders

Koyo Kouoh, the influential curator and executive director of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz Mocaa) in Cape Town, has died at age 57, just ten days before she was to announce the title and themes of the 2026 Venice Biennale, for which she had been appointed curator of the international exhibition in December 2024—the first African woman to hold that role. Kouoh transformed Zeitz Mocaa from a fledgling institution into a globally respected museum, securing the donation of Jochen Zeitz's collection, expanding the board, and launching community-focused initiatives like the exhibition *Home is Where the Art is* (2020-21) and the online summit Radical Solidarity.

tony fitzpatrick chicago artist obituary

Tony Fitzpatrick, a prominent figure in Chicago's art scene, died at age 66 on October 11 from a heart attack while awaiting a double lung transplant at Rush University Medical Center. He was an artist, printmaker, poet, writer, actor, gallerist, and city booster, known for collages combining vintage illustrations, tattoo art, words, and natural motifs. His work is held by major institutions including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art. He also ran several Chicago galleries—The Edge, World Tattoo, and The Dime—and published a book, The Sun at the End of the Road: Dispatches From an American Life.

philip leider artforum founding editor dead

Philip Leider, the founding editor of Artforum, died at his home in Berkeley, California, on January 11 at age 96. Leider helped transform Artforum into a leading source for rigorous art criticism after becoming its editor in 1962, but he left the publication in 1971 and largely disengaged from the mainstream art world, later teaching at the University of California, Irvine and the Bezalel Academy of Fine Arts in Israel.

british pop art originator peter phillips dies at 86

Peter Phillips, a founding figure of the British Pop art movement, died on June 23 at age 86. Born in Birmingham in 1939, he studied at London's Royal College of Art alongside David Hockney, Allen Jones, and R.B. Kitaj, and became known for vibrant paintings that incorporated consumer culture imagery, such as his 1961 work *For Men Only — Starring MM and BB*. His career included exhibitions at the Paris Biennale, the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, and shows in New York alongside Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. In later years he moved to Australia, and his family is raising funds to establish the Peter Phillips Foundation.

Ulysses Jenkins (1946–2026), A Black Radical Imagination

The article is a personal tribute by curator Erin Christovale to the late artist Ulysses Jenkins (1946–2026), chronicling their decade-long friendship and collaboration. Christovale recounts how she first encountered Jenkins's video work at the William Grant Still Arts Center in Los Angeles, and how a conversation with Otolith Group's Kodwo Eshun led to her curating Jenkins's work. She describes key moments including Jenkins's video "Planet X" (2006) about Hurricane Katrina, his 1979 work "Two-Zone Transfer" featuring Kerry James Marshall in blackface masks, and the 2021 retrospective "Ulysses Jenkins: Without Your Interpretation" co-curated with Meg Onli at the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, which later traveled to the Hammer Museum and Julia Stoschek Foundation.

ceal floyer dead

Ceal Floyer, a conceptual artist known for her spare, witty sculptures that transformed everyday objects into thought-provoking art, died on Thursday at age 57 after a long illness. Her Berlin-based gallery Esther Schipper, along with Lisson Gallery and 303 Gallery, confirmed her death. Floyer gained international recognition for works like *Light Switch* (1992–99), which projected an image of a light switch onto a wall, and *Bucket* (1999), a plastic bucket with a recorded dripping sound but no water. She participated in major exhibitions including the Venice Biennale (2009) and Documenta (2012), and won the Preis der Nationalgalerie in 2007.

Renowned gallerist Marian Goodman has died, aged 97

Marian Goodman, the renowned contemporary art dealer, died on 22 January at the age of 97. Her eponymous gallery confirmed she passed peacefully of natural causes. Over a 60-year career, Goodman built a reputation for representing challenging, conceptually ambitious artists, including Gerhard Richter, Nan Goldin, Anselm Kiefer, Julie Mehretu, William Kentridge, and Nairy Baghramian. She opened her first gallery in New York in 1977 and later expanded to Paris and London, before closing the London space in 2020. In her final decade, the gallery saw high-profile departures but also added new artists and opened a Los Angeles location in 2023 and a new Tribeca space in 2024. A succession plan was announced in 2021, and the gallery is now led by partners Emily-Jane Kirwan, Rose Lord, Leslie Nolen, and Junette Teng.

sylvain amic musee d orsay dead

Sylvain Amic, an art historian who became director of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris just 16 months ago, died suddenly at age 58 on Sunday in southern France due to heart failure. His death has shocked the French and international art world. Amic previously led the Musée Fabre in Montpellier, oversaw a consortium of 11 museums in Rouen, and served as an adviser to former French culture minister Rima Abdul Malak. He was in the midst of planning a permanent collection rehang and a new research center at the Orsay, and had recently organized a traveling exhibition of masterworks that visited Shanghai's Pudong Art Museum.

robert wilson memorial silence

A memorial for the late theater visionary Robert Wilson was held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) Harvey Theater, featuring a 30-minute period of silence as requested by Wilson before his death at age 83. The gathering drew luminaries including Philip Glass, Rufus Wainwright, Laurie Anderson, ANOHNI, Christopher Knowles, Joan Jonas, and Paula Cooper, none of whom spoke during the main program. The silence was punctuated by shifting lighting and a recorded ringing telephone, followed by remarks from William Campbell, chairman of Wilson's Watermill Center, and Joseph Melillo, former BAM executive producer.

Llyn Foulkes, art world iconoclast, has died, aged 91

Llyn Foulkes, the iconoclastic Los Angeles artist known for his defiantly independent and multidisciplinary practice, died on 20 November at age 91. A painter, jazz musician, and provocateur, Foulkes resisted commercial commodification throughout his career, creating work that ranged from Pop Art-inflected paintings to political assemblages incorporating Mickey Mouse imagery. His death was announced by Kent Fine Art, a New York gallery that had published several books on his work.

Douglas Lees obituary

Douglas Lees, a dedicated architect and community figure, has died at the age of 94. Born in East London and overcoming the physical limitations of Erb’s palsy, Lees spent his career designing diverse structures across England, ranging from new town developments in Merseyside to prison facilities for the Home Office. In his later years, he became a fixture in the village of Hatfield Broad Oak, where he contributed to local planning and captured the local scenery through watercolor painting.

A Curator Died Suddenly. Could the Venice Biennale Be Saved?

Koyo Kouoh, the curator of the Venice Biennale’s centerpiece exhibition, died suddenly of cancer at age 57, just months into her tenure. She left behind a detailed plan for the exhibition, which her assistants are now working to realize in her absence.

Jürgen Habermas, philosopher famed for and within the public sphere, 1929–2026

Jürgen Habermas, philosopher famed for and within the public sphere, 1929–2026

Jürgen Habermas, the highly influential German philosopher, has died at the age of 96. A key figure of the Frankfurt School, his work on communication, rationality, and the public sphere extended far beyond academia, making him a prominent public intellectual who frequently commented on contemporary politics.

Tony Fitzpatrick, indefatigable artistic polymath from Chicago, has died, aged 66

Tony Fitzpatrick, a prolific Chicago artist known for his collages, etchings, and works on paper, died of a heart attack on 11 October at age 66. He was also a poet, author, actor, and raconteur, with his work held in major museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Fitzpatrick ran the influential gallery World Tattoo and was a vocal defender of labor unions and underdogs. He had been awaiting a double lung transplant after being diagnosed with interstitial lung disease, but continued creating until his death, including a new book and a live show at Steppenwolf Theater.

Michel Bassompierre (1948-2026)

French sculptor Michel Bassompierre has died at age 78. Known for his monumental bronze and marble animal sculptures—polar bears, gorillas, elephants, pandas, and horses—he depicted them in moments of rest and balance, simplifying forms in the tradition of François Pompon. Bassompierre studied at the École des beaux arts de Rouen under René Leleu, taught applied arts, and later worked with foundries including Venturi Arte in Italy. His major exhibitions include "Fragiles colosses" at the Jardin des plantes in Paris (2019) and a show at the Musée Despiau Wlérick (2021). In February 2025, the municipality of Vertou announced plans for a Michel Bassompierre museum, slated to open in 2028. He was named a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2010, received the Légion d'honneur in January 2025, and was promoted to Officier des Arts et des Lettres on April 1, 2025.

Henrike Naumann—selected for this year's Germany pavilion at the Venice Biennale—has died

Artist Henrike Naumann, who was selected alongside Sung Tieu to represent Germany at the 2024 Venice Biennale, has died at age 39. She passed away on February 14 in Berlin after a short, serious illness, which her website specified was a late cancer diagnosis. The Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (Ifa), which oversees the German Pavilion, confirmed her death and stated that her planned work for the Biennale will be realized posthumously according to her completed vision.

Pearl Fryar, a Picasso of Plants, Dies at 86

Pearl Fryar, the visionary self-taught topiary artist who transformed his yard in Bishopville, South Carolina, into a world-renowned botanical masterpiece, has died at age 86. Starting in the 1980s with no formal training, Fryar used a gas-powered hedge trimmer to sculpt salvaged plants into gravity-defying, abstract geometric forms that drew thousands of international visitors to his three-acre property.