This week's obituary column honors the recent passing of twelve significant figures from the global art and culture world. The list includes French experimental composer Éliane Radigue, Japanese graphic designer Kazumasa Nagai, British architect Axel Burrough, Indigenous Australian muralist Elizabeth Close, and Upper East Side gallerist Gertrude Stein, among other artists, patrons, and illustrators.
These losses collectively represent a broad swath of 20th and 21st-century cultural history, from pioneering electronic music and graphic design to Chicano sculpture, Holocaust survivor art, and key architectural and gallery spaces. Their deaths mark the passing of influential creators and supporters whose work shaped public art, institutional identities, children's literature, and avant-garde movements, leaving a lasting legacy across multiple disciplines and continents.