Obituaries - Artworld

Carole Kismaric, 60, photography book editor and curator, died Nov. 19 in New York of pancreatic cancer. She began her career in 1970 as a picture researcher for Time-Life Books, and later, as associate editor, helped develop its photography series and edited five titles. From 1976 to 1985, she was editorial director of the Aperture Foundation, a nonprofit publisher of photography books. While there, she also edited the foundation's quarterly magazine. Kismaric became publications director at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in 1985, where she oversaw catalogues of John Coplans, David Hammons and Jack Smith. In 1991, she co-created, with independent curator and writer Marvin Heiferman, a partnership called Lookout to organize exhibitions and publish catalogues. They produced the popular 1994 traveling show "Talking Pictures," which enabled visitors to hear recordings about how the works on view had touched the speakers' lives, "Paradise Now: Picturing the Genetic Revolution," at Exit Art in New York in 2000, and "Fame After Photography," at the Museum of Modern Art. Among the books the team published are Frida Kahlo: The Camera Seduced (1992) and Fay's Fairy Tales: Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood (1993), a book of William Wegman's work. Since 1990, she had also taught graduate photography classes at the School of Visual Arts.

James DeSilva, 83, collector and founder of the Stuart Collection at the University of California, San Diego, died of a stroke Sept. 12 in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. In 1982, he established the innovative collection in partnership with UCSD, using his middle name to keep a low profile, and began commissioning site-specific public works that are scattered throughout the extensive campus. The collection currently contains works by 15 artists, including Niki de Saint Phalle, Robert Irwin, Alexis Smith, Elizabeth Murray, Nam June Paik, Terry Allen and John Baldessari. Ownership of the works will be transferred to the university. DeSilva also served on the boards of the San Diego Museum of Art and the city's Museum of Contemporary Art.

Michel Majerus, 35, Berlin-based painter, died Nov. 6 in a plane crash in Luxembourg, where he was born. He was known for his brightly colored large-scale painting installations that borrow from art history and such popular sources as advertising and graphic design. He also received attention at Cologne's Kunstverein in 2000 for a work that functioned as a half-pipe for skateboarders. He showed in numerous international exhibitions, including the Taipei Biennial (2000) and Manifesta in Luxembourg (1998). His first solo U.S. exhibition was held in September-October 2002 at Friedrich Petzel Gallery in New York [see A.i.A., Dec. '02].

Nancy S. Nichols, 57, cultural headhunter, died Oct. 2 of Lou Gehrig's disease in Rhinebeck, N.Y. She received her Ph.D. in Islamic art from Harvard and spent a year in Turkey as a Fulbright fellow in 1979-80. In 1996, she joined Heidrick & Struggles, an executive search firm, where she was a managing partner. As chief of its education and nonprofit section, she helped numerous museums, universities and foundations fill top posts. Among her clients were the Metropolitan, the Whitney and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Smithsonian Institution, L.A. MOCA, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Quita Brodhead, 101, abstract painter, died Sept. 4 in Bryn Mawr, Penn. Her early work consisted mostly of impressionistic nudes and still lifes painted with a bold palette. In the 1950s, her brightly colored canvases became increasingly abstract. Exhibitions commemorating her 100th birthday were mounted in 2001 at the Pennsylvania Academy in Philadelphia and at Hollis Taggart Galleries in New York.

Robert Winthrop White, 81, sculptor, died Sept. 21 in Smithtown, N.Y. A grandson of architect Stanford White, he was known for creating the statue of General John J. Pershing at Pershing Park in Washington, D.C. His works were shown in New York at James Graham & Sons Gallery and Davis Galleries (now Davis and Langdale). He also taught art at SUNY-Stony Brook from 1967 to '87.

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