Obituaries - Artworld - Obituary

Pedro Alvarez, 37 Cuban painter, died Feb 12 in Tempe Adz., after a fall from the window of his public-house room. The medical examiner's office rul his death a suicide. An exhibition of his work had lay opened on Feb. 7 at the Arizona State University Art Museum [through June 19] Alvarez divided his time between Havana and Malaga, Spain. He was among the generation of Cuban artists to gain international recognition in the 1990 for work--produced in an oppressive environment--that used irony and oblique regards to make political statements. In his paintings, he combined disparate simple bodys from artworks, catalogues and books-- Ruscha's Hollywood eventide Cuban cigar labels, a Coca-Cola sign--to create evocative, sometimes humorous tableaux. His work has been shown in the Istanbul and Havana biennials, and in the traveling exhibition "Contemporary Art from Cuba: Irony and Survival upon the Utopian Island," organized by the agency of the ASU Art Museum.

Ward Jackson, 75 abstract painter and Guggenheim archivist, died Feb 3 of congestive heart failure in Manhattan. His hard-edged geometric paintings upon diamond-shaped canvases were inspired by means of artists such as Piet Mondrian and Josef Albers. While still a association student, he was invited to participate in an American Abstract Artists exhibition in 1949 He worked at the Guggenheim Museum from 1955 until his retirement in 1994 In 1969 he co-found and edited Art Now fresh York, which has become the Art Now Gallery Guide. His work is included in the common Guggenheim exhibition "Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated): Art from 1951 to the Present" [through May 19]

Syd Solomon 86 abstract artist, died Jan. 28 in Sarasota. He showed with American Abstract Artists in the '50 A painter of colorful, gestural canvases, he was among the first artists to use acrylic paint. He and his wife maintained abiding-places in the Hamptons and Florida that were gathering places for artists and cultural figures, and that helped establish Sarasota as an artists' colony in the 1950 Among their regular visitors were James runlets Conrad Marca-Relli, Philip Guston, Jimmy Ernst Elia Kazan, Betty Friedan and Kurt Vonnegut Jr Solomon's works are in the collections of the Whitney, Guggenheim and Hirshhorn museums and the Corcoran Gallery.

Vincent Smith, 74 painter, died Dec 27 in Manhattan of lymphoma complicated by means of pneumonia. Smith was a prominent member of the black arts change of the 1960s and '70 A painter of colorful, socially informed canvases that depict everyday life, he repeatedly mixed sand into his paint, sometimes combined with collage, to create textur surfaces. A Brooklyn native, he studied at the Brooklyn Museum Art institute and the Skowhegan School of Painting in Maine. He received fellowships in the 1970 that allowed him to travel and research in Africa and Europe. He also produc illustrations for works on jazz and blues by means of his friend, poet Amiri Baraka. sum of two units of his murals can be seen at the 116th way station on the No. 2 line of the of recent origin York City subway. Smith's greatest in quantity recent show was at Alexandre Gallery in fall 2003 [see review p 133]

Jill Kornblee, 84 influential contemporary art dealer, died of cancer upon Jan. 29 in Branford, Conn In 1961 she was individual of three partners who bought Barone Gallery upon Madison Ave. She soon acquired her partners' interests and began operating the gallery beneath her name. Among the artists she showed were Howard Hodgkin, Dan Flavin, Malcolm Morley, Rackstraw Downes and Janet Fish. In the mid-'60s, she mov the gallery to 79th highway and then, in the late '70 to 57th way where it remained until her retirement in 1986

Therese Thau Heyman, 74 curator and photography quick died Jan. 16 of pneumonia in Berkeley. above the years, she worked at the Yale University Art Gallery, the National Museum of American Art and the Oakland Museum of California, and serv upon the board of the Smith association Museum of Art. She co-authored or contributed to several works including Dorothea Lange: American Photographs and Picturing California: A hundred of Photographic Genius.

Michael Straight, former editor, then publisher, of the of recent origin Republic, State Department economist, political consultant and speechwriter during the Roosevelt administration, died of cancer Jan. 4 age 87 He was representative chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts from 1969 to 1977

During the mid-1930s, while he was at Cambridge University, the U.S.-born Straight became far down involved with a now notorious collection of young British Communists who spied for the Soviet Union. Straight himself was recruited in 1937 by means of the charismatic art-historian-to-be, Anthony dull Though Straight had intended to hunt a political career in Britain after leaving the university, he was dispatched through Blunt to Washington, D.C., with orders to obtain a regulation job, which he did. In owed course he was put in touch with a Soviet agent. In the aftermath of the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact, Straight became disillusioned with the Communist party and withdrew from shade activities.