Art Critic

Former New York Times chief art critic Hilton Kramer, 84, died Tuesday. His wife, Esta, said he had had a blood disease. He had been in an assisted-living facility in Harpswell, Maine. Mr. Kramer started as an art critic in the early 1950s and joined the Times in 1965 as art-news editor. He became chief art critic in 1973. He left the newspaper in 1982 and became founding editor of the New Criterion magazine, a monthly journal that critiques the arts and other topics. - AP  

Dennis Leon, 65, formerly of Philadelphia, a sculptor, art critic and teacher, died Thursday at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Oakland, Calif. He died unexpectedly a few hours after back surgery, and an autopsy was being performed to determine the cause of death. Mr. Leon was the art critic at The Inquirer from 1959 to 1962, and taught at the Philadelphia Museum College of Art (now the University of the Arts) from 1959 until 1970. He was director of its sculpture department from 1967 to 1970.

Jesse Helms, art critic, has won himself another round, this time cowing virtually the entire Senate into joining him in making the walls of publicly funded galleries safe for all-American art. He got the senators to go along with banning federal arts dollars for anything "obscene or indecent," especially things sadomasochistic or homoerotic. And, museums could forget tax money if their art insulted anyone's race, creed, sex, national origin, handicap, age or religion. That last part is new territory for Jesse Helms, civil rights opponent.

Budding art critic Felicia, 4, eyes poster art from children in Project Rainbow, publicizing Meridian Bank's fund-raising campaign for homeless services. Works by artists Nicole Giangiordano (center) and Heather Gibson (right) will be among art the featured on calendars sold by the bank. Lending a hand, too, is Meridian's Delaware Valley division president, David Bright.

Sculptor Isamu Noguchi - who provided Philadelphia with its most controversial art object since Claes Oldenberg's Clothespin - died yesterday in New York at age 84. Noguchi's massive "Bolt of Lightning" structure at the base of the Ben Franklin Bridge has been the source of constant praise and bitter criticism since its construction in 1984. Noguchi, born in Los Angeles in 1904, died at New York University Medical Center of heart failure after a short illness early yesterday.

Cyril Gardner, 96, of Wallingford, an artist and a founder of the Wallingford Arts Center, died Sept. 9 at home. In 1956, an art critic wrote that Mr. Gardner had painted "everybody who is anybody. " Over his long career, he painted portraits of the rich and famous, including Mrs. Milton Hershey, wife of the chocolate baron; the children of Walter Annenberg; the children of political columnist Drew Pearson; and members of the du Pont dynasty. His son Edward Gardner said his father often drew portraits of ordinary people as well.

Participants in the annual exhibitions organized by the Cheltenham Art Center are spurred by a special incentive: Not only are their works seen by the thousands of visitors to the suburban center's show, but the artists also have a chance at the top prize - inclusion in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This year, to mark the 45th anniversary of the Cheltenham Art Center, the museum is mounting an exhibition of 15...

An editorial page is a dialogue between a newspaper and its readers. In that spirit, today we introduce an occasional feature called Write Back. It will review how Inquirer readers have responded to an editorial stand; the earlier editorial is excerpted first, then the readers' responses are presented. On the Barnes: The editorial 'Enough,' (Sept. 3) argued: "Pride and old animosities need to be put aside to preserve [the Barnes Foundation's] amazing art collection.

It took a protracted court battle, concerted curatorial effort and more than a dash of hype to convert the cream of Albert C. Barnes' prodigious art collection into a show called "Great French Paintings From the Barnes Foundation. " So far, however, the critical reaction to the touring exhibition, on view this summer at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, has been decidedly mixed. Washington Post art critic Paul Richard praised the show of 81 impressionist, post-impressionist and modern works as "a grand feast for the eyes" that "includes some of the most beautiful French paintings in America.

Former New York Times chief art critic Hilton Kramer, 84, died Tuesday. His wife, Esta, said he had had a blood disease. He had been in an assisted-living facility in Harpswell, Maine. Mr. Kramer started as an art critic in the early 1950s and joined the Times in 1965 as art-news editor. He became chief art critic in 1973. He left the newspaper in 1982 and became founding editor of the New Criterion magazine, a monthly journal that critiques the arts and other topics. - AP  

TAKE YOUNGMAN (PLEASE!) Think of Jayson Musson as the Sacha Baron Cohen of the art world and Hennessy Youngman as an art critic Ali G (see youtube.com/user/Youngman). "The Grand Manner," Musson's exhibit at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts through Feb. 5, features Youngman's criticism of their great works via cellphone tour. Youngman will do one of his typically hysterical presentations at 11:30 a.m. Thursday at PAFA, 128 N. Broad St. It's free. 215-972-7600, pafa.org. OTHERWORLDLY DANCE Chunky Move's riveting, 60-minute work "Connected" launches Dance Celebration's 29th season, "Out of this World.

Ten years after the horrific fact, Sept. 11, 2001, has yet to produce its Guernica. Most likely this is because our era lacks a Picasso, but I can think of at least two other possible reasons. The first is that the societal, political, psychological, and historical ramifications of what the late, unlamented Osama bin Laden wrought are just too immense and complicated to be neatly encapsulated in a single work of art. The other is that our media-saturated age has produced so many 9/11 images, from the banal to the poignant, that even a Guernica would become lost in the visual miasma.

The phrase "didn't suffer fools gladly" fit Robert Baxter flawlessly. So, too, did the nickname "Bobby Bee," with which the respected fine-arts critic, journalist, and teacher liked to sign off particularly piquant e-mails. Robert died Wednesday after what writers far more hackneyed than he might describe as a "brave battle" with pancreatic cancer. He was only 69. Given that Bobby Bee's sting must be avoided at all costs and at all times, I hereby vow to bravely battle my congenital Irish Catholic zest for sentimentality in today's column.

Robert Baxter, 69, of Cherry Hill, a longtime performing-arts critic whose writing helped advance the South Jersey arts scene and who through the Opera Club amplified interest in opera on both sides of the river, died of pancreatic cancer Wednesday, Aug. 25, at his home. Sweet and soft-spoken in person, Mr. Baxter was tough and authoritative in writing. The Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia revoked his free review tickets because of his constant harsh criticism of its shows.

Paul Farwell Keene Jr., 89, a Philadelphia-area artist and teacher whose 70 years of work helped raise the visibility of black American artists, died of natural causes Nov. 26 at home in Warrington. Mr. Keene created paintings, drawings, and prints; his works, mixing realism and abstraction, drew on his knowledge of and feelings about the black experience, including slavery. He was born in Philadelphia and raised in North Philadelphia. As a teen in the late 1930s, he was determined to be an artist.

Helen K. Haselburger Siegl, 84, formerly of Mount Airy, an artist who captured children's imaginations in her prints and book illustrations, died of heart disease Jan. 26 at home in Big Flats, N.Y., where she had lived since 1990. Mrs. Siegl's woodcuts, lithographs and etchings are included in museum collections, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the National Gallery. She produced art for UNICEF calendars and gained a reputation for illustrations of children's books, including Birds and Beasts, Earrings for Celia and Indian Tales.

Frida Kahlo's physical and emotional suffering is as famous as the paintings in which she graphically deconstructed it. Yet it remains a subject of speculation and reinterpretation more than half a century after the Mexican Modernist's death at age 47. The mythic quality of her agonies is part of the allure of exhibits like the one now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Parts of Kahlo's medical history will always be puzzling, but one thing...

What is truth? What is art? And what's that little girl doing with gobs of paint? Making hundreds of thousands of dollars, she is. Amir Bar-Lev's My Kid Could Paint That is a fascinating documentary about (then) 4-year-old Marla Olmstead, an Upstate New York tot whose abstract canvases - first hung in a cafe, then in a local art gallery in the fall of 2004 - began selling for five figures. To date, the "pint-sized Pollack's" work has netted more than $300,000. The focus of much media hoopla, and a 60 Minutes debunking that suggested Marla's art was the product of coaching from her dad - and perhaps the actual handiwork of her dad - Marla remains something of a mystery.

What is truth? What is art? And what's that little girl doing with gobs of paint? Making hundreds of thousands of dollars, she is. Amir Bar-Lev's My Kid Could Paint That is a fascinating documentary about (then) 4-year-old Marla Olmstead, an Upstate New York tot whose abstract canvases - first hung in a cafe, then in a local art gallery in the fall of 2004 - began selling for five figures. To date, the "pint-sized Pollack's" work has netted more than $300,000. The focus of much media hoopla, and a 60 Minutes debunking that suggested Marla's art was the product of coaching from her dad - and perhaps the actual handiwork of her dad - Marla remains something of a mystery.