"The quest to undercut fashion’s standards of perfection, and to find beauty in the disdained, overlooked or overripe, runs throughout Mr. Penn’s career. In an otherwise pristine still life of food, he included a house fly, and in a 1959 close-up, he placed a beetle in a model’s ear." So long, Irving Penn.
posted by flapjax at midnite on Oct 7, 2009 - 20 comments

Dash Snow, seminal artist, is dead of an overdose. [more inside]
posted by infinitefloatingbrains on Jul 15, 2009 - 149 comments

Legendary artist Alton Kelley created a graphic style that rocked the world beginning in the psychedelic sixties. His concert posters, logo designs, LP album covers, and fine art have forevermore defined that time. Kelley passed away peacefully at home on Sunday, June 1, 2008 of complications from a long illness.
posted by terrapin on Jun 2, 2008 - 18 comments

Elizabeth Murray, a New York painter who reshaped Modernist abstraction into a high-spirited, cartoon-based, language of form whose subjects included domestic life, relationships and the nature of painting itself, died yesterday at her home in upstate New York. (Images)
posted by R. Mutt on Aug 12, 2007 - 7 comments

Famed Arabic calligrapher Khalil al-Zahawi murdered. (Arabic: خليل الزهاوي‎; 1946 - 25 May 2007) Khalil al-Zahawi was the most famous practitioner in Iraq of the art of writing classical Arabic script. He was shot to death Friday as he left his home.
posted by psmealey on May 29, 2007 - 54 comments

Australian artist Pro Hart has died. Hart used DNA in his paintings to foil counterfeiters. Sometimes he painted with a cannon, other times with a plane.
posted by tellurian on Mar 27, 2006 - 16 comments

SA VIGNAC. Welcome to the world of Raymond Savignac, the greatest poster artist of all time, and inventor of the little Bic man. Joyous, naughty, simple, elegant, and beautiful.
posted by Sticherbeast on Dec 7, 2004 - 4 comments

Another master taken: Richard Avedon, dead at 81. Arguably the greatest portrait photographer in history, Avedon was famous not only for his fashion or celebrity shots, but also his interest in the common man, best emphasized by the book "In the American West". He was recently working on a piece, "On Democracy" when he suffered a brain hemorrhage. Many may be familiar with his simple black & white on white style from his shots for the New Yorker (he was their first staff photographer). His site is currently shrouded in respect.
posted by Civil_Disobedient on Oct 1, 2004 - 13 comments

Wesley Willis: Rock and roll star, artist, poet, movie star and friend to all he met passed away last night from Leukemia at the age of 40. The six foot five, 320 pound Chicago area musician who cut his teeth on the streets selling city landscape drawings and playing music on his tiny Casio keyboard was infamous for his raw insightful songs and ability to draw his audiences into a schizophrenic's take on reality.
posted by car_bomb on Aug 22, 2003 - 35 comments

Cartoonist Bill Mauldin Dead at 81. Mauldin was the creator of the every-GIs Willie and Joe during WWII and twice won the Pulitzer Prize.
posted by turbodog on Jan 22, 2003 - 11 comments

Frank Moore [NYT], the originator of the red ribbon, died of AIDS last week. His gorgeous paintings depicted politics from Yosemite to Versace. As one of the few incredibly contemporary but still publicly accessible artists, he will be missed.
posted by RJ Reynolds on Apr 26, 2002 - 4 comments

"When Christ called his disciples called fishermen, he didn't call nobody from a qualified university," R.I.P. Rev. Howard Finster. Which is your favorite Finster cover art? Mine would have to be R.E.M.'s "Reckoning".
posted by likorish on Oct 22, 2001 - 14 comments

The man behind Woman in the Dunes has passed away. Filmmaker Hiroshi Teshigahara died on Saturday with nary a press announcement. I haven't been this pissed off about a media blackout since Sam Fuller passed on (or, to some extent, the recent death of Joey Ramone). Is the only way for an obscure artist to gain that long-neglected recognition for their works to kick the bucket? It would seem that, even then, there are no guarantees.
posted by ed on Apr 18, 2001 - 4 comments