gunther uecker zero artist dead

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.

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.

in memoriam 2024

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.

multimedia artist raymond saunders dies at 90

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.

david lynch obituary

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.

Georg Baselitz, German artist who turned figurative painting on its head, has died, aged 88

Georg Baselitz, the influential German painter and sculptor, died on 30 April at age 88. Born Hans-Georg Kern in 1938 in Deutschbaselitz, he grew up amid the ruins of Nazi Germany and later adopted his surname from his birthplace. Expelled from the East Berlin Academy for "sociopolitical immaturity," he moved to West Berlin, where he rejected both gestural abstraction and Expressionism. His first solo exhibition in 1963 was shut down for obscenity. In 1969 he pioneered his signature inverted paintings, turning subjects upside down to sever image from representation. He also created large carved sculptures using axes and chainsaws. His later series, from 2014 onward, are considered his most astonishing work, culminating in a sustained focus on his wife, artist Elke Kretzschmar.

Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, Painter Who Used Her Art to Fight for Justice, Dies at 46

Acclaimed American painter Celeste Dupuy-Spencer has passed away at the age of 46 at her home in Los Angeles. Known for her visceral and politically charged figurative works, Dupuy-Spencer rose to prominence through her inclusion in the 2017 Whitney Biennial and the 2018 Made in L.A. biennial. Her death was announced by the Jeffrey Deitch gallery just ahead of a scheduled exhibition of her new work in Los Angeles.

melvin edwards sculptor dead

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.

agosto machado artist activist dead whitney biennial

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.

arnulf rainer dead

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.

art green founding figure of chicago harry who obituary

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.

raquelin mendieta ana mendieta estate administrator dead

Raquelín Mendieta, the longtime administrator of the estate of her sister, artist Ana Mendieta, died on October 24 in Miami at age 79 due to a long illness. Raquelín took charge of Ana's legacy after the artist's death in 1985, organizing a retrospective at the New Museum in 1987 and partnering with Galerie Lelong in 1991 to establish a market for Ana's work. Under her stewardship, Ana's art was acquired by major museums like the Whitney Museum and included in over 600 group shows and 55 solo exhibitions, including 16 museum retrospectives.

alison knowles dead make a salad fluxus

Alison Knowles, a pioneering artist of the Fluxus movement, died at age 92 in New York on October 29. Her gallery, James Fuentes, announced her passing but did not specify a cause. Knowles was best known for works like *Make a Salad* (1962) and *The Identical Lunch*, which used everyday materials and simple text-based instructions to create participatory art. Her most famous piece, *Make a Salad*, consists only of its title as a directive, allowing performers to interpret it freely; it has been staged at venues from Art Basel to Tate Modern. Knowles was a key figure in Fluxus, a movement formalized in 1963 by George Maciunas that rejected traditional art in favor of performance and accessible materials.

rosalyn drexler dead pop art

Rosalyn Drexler, a Pop artist known for her 1960s paintings exploring Hollywood, violence, and gender, died in New York at age 98. Her death was confirmed by Garth Greenan Gallery, which represents her. Drexler also wrote novels and briefly worked as a professional wrestler before turning to art.

tony bechara painter dead el museo del barrio

Tony Bechara, a Puerto Rican-born artist known for his intricate multicolored grid paintings and his long tenure as board chair of El Museo del Barrio, died on his 83rd birthday. His death was confirmed by the museum, though no cause was given. Bechara spent decades creating labor-intensive canvases built from thousands of hand-painted quarter-inch squares, exploring randomness and controlled chaos. Beyond his studio practice, he served as board chair of El Museo del Barrio for 18 years, was a trustee at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Brooklyn Rail, and championed the work of painter Carmen Herrera, helping to secure her a Whitney Museum survey in 2016.

VALIE EXPORT, pioneering artist who centred the female body, 1940–2026

VALIE EXPORT, the pioneering Austrian feminist artist known for her provocative performances centered on the female body, has died at age 85. Born in Linz in 1940, she adopted the name VALIE EXPORT in 1967 and quickly rose to prominence with iconic actions such as *TAP and TOUCH Cinema* (1968) and *Action Pants: Genital Panic* (1968), which challenged passive representations of women. Her work spanned photography, film, and expanded cinema, and she participated in major international exhibitions including documenta 6 and 12, and the Venice Biennale, where she and Maria Lassnig became the first women to represent Austria in 1980.

Georg Baselitz, Lion of German Neo-Expressionism, Dead at 88

Georg Baselitz, the influential German Neo-Expressionist painter, printmaker, and sculptor, died on April 30 at age 88. His death was announced by Thaddaeus Ropac gallery, his longtime representative. Born Hans-Georg Kern in 1938 in Saxony, Baselitz was profoundly shaped by his childhood experience of war and the destruction of Nazi Germany. He was expelled from art school in East Berlin for "socio-political immaturity," moved to West Berlin, and adopted his pseudonym from his hometown. His first solo exhibition in 1963 was raided by police for obscenity, cementing his reputation as a provocateur. Known for his upside-down figures and fierce brushwork, he created series such as "Heroes" and "Fracture" that addressed trauma, violence, and the psychic toll of postwar life.

German artist Georg Baselitz dies aged 88

German artist Georg Baselitz has died at age 88, as confirmed by the Thaddaeus Ropac gallery. Known for his expressive paintings and sculptures, Baselitz rose to prominence in the 1960s after a scandal over sexually symbolic works led to a high-profile court case. He pioneered painting canvases upside down from 1969 onward, a technique he used to grapple with German history and collective guilt. His work spanned six decades and included notable sculptures, such as a wooden figure at the 1980 Venice Biennale that appeared to perform a Nazi salute, which he later clarified was inspired by an African artifact. Baselitz achieved international acclaim in the 1980s and became one of Germany's highest-priced living artists, alongside Gerhard Richter.

Remembering Glen Baxter, Pat Steir, Melvin Edwards

The art world mourns the recent deaths of several significant figures. British absurdist cartoonist Glen Baxter, known for his work in The New Yorker and exhibitions at Flowers Gallery, has died. American sculptor Melvin Edwards, renowned for his welded steel Lynch Fragments addressing racist violence, and pioneering feminist painter Pat Steir, celebrated for her conceptual, process-based works, have also passed. The article additionally notes the deaths of Lebanese painter Ali Sbeity, killed in an airstrike; Mexican folk artist Josefina Aguilar; British heritage leader Neil Cossons; British painter Charles Debenham; and Cypriot painter Andreas Karayian.

Pedro Friedeberg, Surrealist Artist Known for Hand-Chair, Dies at 90

pedro friedeberg surrealist artist dead hand chair

Pedro Friedeberg, the prolific artist and designer central to Mexico’s Surrealist-aligned circles, has died at age 90 in San Miguel de Allende. Born in Italy and having fled to Mexico to escape fascism, Friedeberg became a singular figure in Latin American art, known for his architectural paintings and whimsical, absurdist sculptures. His death was confirmed by his New York representative, Ruiz-Healy Art.

Dóra Maurer, Hungarian Conceptual Artist, Dies at 88

dora maurer artist dead

Dóra Maurer, a preeminent figure of Hungarian conceptual art, has died at the age of 88. Known for her multidisciplinary approach spanning film, photography, and painting, Maurer rose to prominence for her experimental work created under Soviet rule in Hungary. Her practice frequently explored themes of displacement, perception, and the mathematical shifting of forms, ranging from her 1970s performance-based photography to her later vibrant, geometric "Overlappings" paintings.

art calvin tompkins new yorker dies

Calvin Tomkins, the longtime New Yorker writer known for his intimate profiles of modern and contemporary artists, has died at age 100 in his home in Middletown, Rhode Island. Over more than six decades, Tomkins profiled giants of the art world including Marcel Duchamp, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, John Cage, Georgia O'Keeffe, Kerry James Marshall, and Rashid Johnson, beginning with a 1959 assignment on Duchamp that launched his career. He continued writing sweeping profiles as recently as 2024.

frank gehry architect obituary

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.

Remembering Desmond Morris, James Hayward, and Flo Oy Wong

This week's obituaries mark the passing of several significant figures in the visual arts. They include British surrealist painter and zoologist Desmond Morris, known for his 'biomorph' paintings and experiments with chimpanzee art; West Coast monochrome abstractionist James Hayward, who developed a cult following for his thickly painted canvases; and Chinese American artist Flo Oy Wong, a foundational storyteller of Oakland's Chinatown and the Asian American experience. Also remembered are assemblage artist Aldwyth, Ethiopian painter and educator Behailu Bezabih, Anglo-Irish conservator and designer Alec Cobbe, Bangladeshi art director Tarun Ghosh, and New Mexico painter Michael Hurd.

Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, Artist Who Confronted Injustice, Dies at 46

Acclaimed painter Celeste Dupuy-Spencer has passed away at the age of 46 in Los Angeles, just days before a scheduled solo exhibition at Jeffrey Deitch’s gallery. Known for her visceral and politically charged figurative works, Dupuy-Spencer gained national recognition for her contributions to the 2017 Whitney Biennial and the 2018 Made in LA biennial. Her practice often deconstructed American mythologies, the rise of domestic fascism, and global human rights issues, including a high-profile stance against the conflict in Gaza.

remembering martin parr

British photographer Martin Parr, known for his highly saturated and often humorous snapshots of everyday life, died on December 6 at age 74 after a four-year battle with cancer. Parr's work, from his early black-and-white images of rural Yorkshire to his iconic color series like "The Last Resort" (1982–85) and "The Cost of Living" (1987-89), captured British eccentricities and social pretensions with a sharp, affectionate eye. He was a full member of Magnum Photos and his images, including those of mass tourism and consumerism, have been widely exhibited and collected.

richard hambleton obituary

Richard Hambleton, the Canadian street artist known for his iconic "shadowman" silhouettes that appeared on New York City walls in the 1980s, died on Sunday at age 65, as confirmed by Woodward Gallery. Hambleton emerged alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Kenny Scharf in the downtown graffiti scene, but a long battle with heroin and crack addiction plagued his life. His career saw a resurgence following a documentary by Oscar-nominated director Oren Jacoby, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April, leading to renewed exhibitions including his participation in "Club 57: Film, Performance and Art in the East Village, 1978-1983" at the Museum of Modern Art.

gunther uecker german artist died

German artist Günther Uecker, renowned for his spiritual approach to art and innovative use of nails as a sculptural material, died on Tuesday at age 95 in a Düsseldorf hospital. His family confirmed the death to German news agency dpa, though no cause was given. Uecker was a key member of the Zero Group, which sought to reset art to a "zero base," and his work ranged from nail-covered surfaces to pianos, chairs, and television sets. He also designed a prayer room for Berlin's Reichstag and participated in major exhibitions including Documenta 4 and the Venice Biennale.

The art world remembers Valie Export, Austrian pioneer of feminist performance art

VALIE EXPORT, the Austrian pioneer of feminist performance art, died on 14 May, three days before her 86th birthday. Her death was confirmed by her representative, Thaddaeus Ropac. Born Waltraud Lehner in Linz in 1940, she developed a radical artistic language centered on the female body, known for works such as *Tap and Touch Cinema* (1968–1971) and *Body Configurations* (1972–1976). Tributes have poured in from artists, writers, and institutions, including the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin and the Belvedere Museum in Vienna, where director Stella Rollig noted their ongoing collaboration on the exhibition *Feminist Futures Forever*.

Antonio Homem, Champion of the Ileana Sonnabend Collection, Dies at 86

Antonio Homem, the longtime associate and eventual director of the Sonnabend Gallery, has died at 86. Homem began working with legendary gallerist Ileana Sonnabend in Paris in 1968, helped her open the New York gallery in 1971, and became the primary steward of the Sonnabend collection after her death in 2007, overseeing its transition into a foundation and a new public museum in Mantova, Italy.