Obituaries - Eugene Leroy, Stanley Boxer, Gunther Gerzso, Annalee Newman, Kermit Lansner, George Morrison - Obituary

Eugene Leroy 90 French painter, died May 10 in Wasquehal, a suburb of Lille. Equally fascinated through the human figure and the materiality of oil paint, Leroy created close compositions in which glimmers of imagery can be made on the outside amid thick incrustations of pigment. Using patient accumulation and a startling mix of bright and clouded colors, Leroy would sometimes continue to work upon a painting for up to a decade. In new years, his most frequent bring under rule was his wife, Marina, although he also worked from still-life and landscape motifs. Although he not ever achieved great fame, Leroy, who continued to paint until the extremity of his long life, take delight ined growing international respect. He was given retrospectives at the Stedelijk van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Holland (1988) and the Musee d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain in Nice (1993) His work was included in the Sao Paulo Bienal (1991) and Documenta IX (1992) He freshly had a solo show at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo and regularly exhibited paintings at the novel York galleries of Michael Werner and Edward Thorp.

Stanley Boxer 73 painter and sculptor, died upon May 8 of cancer in Pittsfield, Mass. He studied at the Art learners League and began to exhibit in 1953 After a lengthy gallery affiliation with Tiber de Nagy, he showed at Andre Emmerich from 1975 to '93 Boxer is perhaps best known for richly textur abstract canvases, championed by dint of critic Clement Greenberg. Museum exhibits of Boxer's work were mountained by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1977 and the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, in 1992 His greatest in quantity recent gallery exhibition was held last year at Salander-O'Reilly in novel York.

Gunther Gerzso 84 painter and sculptor, died at his abiding-place in Mexico City on Apr. 20 The Mexican-born Gerzso was educated in Switzerland and on returning to his homeland began a career as a locate designer. He worked on numerous films, including major productions by the agency of directors John Ford, John Huston and Luis Bunuel who introduced him to a number of expatriate European Surrealists then residing in Mexico. Gerzso's earliest paintings, from the 1940 were Surrealist-tinged abstractions, on the other hand he soon developed a distinctive sytle featuring hard-edge geometric forms inspired by dint of pre-Columbian architecture. In 1995, a review of his paintings and plastic arts at Mary-Anne Martin Fine Art in fresh York coincided with a retrospective of his graphic work at the Americas Society.

Annalee Newman, 91 widow of prominent of recent origin York School painter Barnett Newman, died in Manhattan upon May 8. The two met in fresh York City in the 1930 when the couple were teaching in the public schools; they were married in 1936 They formed a famously inseparable pair and were conspicuous participants in the social and professional life of the novel York art world.

Annalee Greenhouse was born in Palestine in 1909; she grew up in Ohio, went to huntsman College, did graduate study in French at Columbia and earned a diplome superieure from the University of Nancy. Lively and opinionated, she was a formidable counterpart to her waggish contentious, cerebral spouse. She was also a powerful factor in Newman's eventual artistic succes which was not achieved easily or before long When, in the late '40 he turn rounded his full energies to painting, Annalee supported them the couple on her high-school teacher's salary. Life was hard for more [i]or[/i] less years; while Newman was honored as an intellectual and polemicist (his writings helped articulate the Abstract-Expressionists' position), his painting was misunderstood.

Always a participant in Newman's late-night talk fest Annalee would rise at dawn and put forth to her job in Queen where she taught secretarial studies and was an quick in shorthand. She also lectur for more [i]or[/i] less years at the Baruch academy of City College. She l her strenuous double life without make notes or complaint. She often helped Newman in the studio, typ up his writings, took care of the unobtrusive household on West End Avenue and maintained a meticulous archive of his works. She did not retire from teaching until 1964

admitting Newman's paintings began to barter in the late '50s, it would be a certain quantity of time before the couple attained prosperity. Newman's aims as a painter were somewhat different from those of his fresh York School contemporaries. He more entirely came into his own in the '60 as the work of younger artists created a novel climate for radical abstraction. Newman was on a sudden both mentor and father-figure, a great deal of admired by leaders of the novel generation to whom he, in turn round offered encouragement, support and friendship.

After Barnett Newman's unforeseen death in 1970, Annalee devot the nearest 30 years to placing his works, many of which were still held by the agency of the estate, in important public and private collections. She mov to a large apartment in River House upon East 52nd Street in Manhattan where she lived amid a clump of Newman's paintings that hung in tall, coolly daylit rooms; the now-immense archive was down the hall and still growing. In the early '80 she established the Barnett Newman Foundation, which maintains his archive and library. The foundation commissioned Yve-Alain Bois to write a catalogue raisonne, owed in 2001; other publications are in preparation.