Art History

Louise Breier Kean, 71, longtime educator who assisted thousands of Rutgers University students through her dual positions as administrative assistant dean of students and international student adviser at the Camden campus, died Saturday at her home in Cherry Hill. Mrs. Kean was born in South Acworth, N.H., where she attended a one-room schoolhouse. She moved to Woodbury in the early 1930s and graduated from Woodbury High School in 1941 as a member of the National Honor Society.

Phyllis Lyon Clemenko, 91, of Haverford, who guided groups through the treasured galleries of the Philadelphia Museum of Art for 34 years, died of heart failure April 1 at home. Mrs. Clemenko was a volunteer guide at the museum from 1969 to 2003, conducting diverse audiences including school groups and people with special needs. A volunteer's training includes 18 months of weekly sessions in art history, art appreciation, and the museum's collections; a yearlong internship; and attendance at continuing-education programs.

Some people spend their lives going through the motions, sleepwalking from one indistinguishable day to the next. Michelle Rein, 44, wasn't one of them. There appeared to be no end to the adventures that the Center City resident crammed into her life, no matter how far-fetched or dangerous they seemed. She was an animal lover who rescued hedgehogs. She fought for women's rights in Iran and spent a week in jail there for her efforts. She lived abroad in Morocco as part of a Fulbright fellowship, and once studied in Saudi Arabia.

Kathleen Compton Sherrerd, 72, of Bryn Mawr, a trustee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, died Thursday at her home. Mrs. Sherrerd devoted most of her long career as a civic volunteer to the museum. She had been a trustee since 1988 and served on the board's executive, development and finance committees as well as the committee on prints, drawings and photographs. Last year she cochaired the museum's successful capital campaign. Her involvement with the museum began in 1965 when she became a volunteer guide and completed an intensive course on the museum's collection.

Jane Swan had a remarkable eyewitness source for her 1989 book, The Lost Children: A Russian Odyssey. Her first husband was Alfred P. Swan, a Red Cross worker who helped guide 800 Russian children far from the revolutionary chaos of St. Petersburg, starting in 1918. Alfred Swan, her music history professor at Swarthmore College, was the prime source for her master's thesis and doctoral dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania. Decades later, the book was based on those papers.

A major collection of African American art and photography numbering about 1,000 pieces has been given to the University of Delaware by Paul R. Jones, an Atlanta businessman and former federal civil-rights official. Strong in photography and Southern regional artists, the collection will come to the university over a period of several years, according to Belena S. Chapp, director of museums. A small portion of it already has arrived. The Jones collection includes paintings, sculpture, works on paper and photographs by such prominent African American artists as Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett and Selma Burke.

Tony Kurz once thought about being an artist, but decided he'd rather be a politician. Still, he enjoys the time he spends in Adrienne Minassian's fifth-grade art class each week at Rolling Hills Elementary School in Holland. He likes the painting and the drawing and the sculpting well enough, but he likes something else even better. "I especially like it when Mrs. Minassian holds up my pictures," Kurz said. Kurz, 10, is one of many young and aspiring artists who will exhibit their works at school district art festivals in Bucks County this spring.

In other districts, debating whether to offer Advanced Placement courses would be like pondering whether to use telephones. AP courses are offered by more than half the high schools in the country because the college-level classes prepare students for National Advanced Placement Exams, which give high school students college credit. Many colleges and universities accept those credits, allowing students to skip entry-level courses as freshmen - and save on tuition. But here, what appears to be an obvious and belated debate about AP is part of a decade-plus discussion that involves hot buttons in the community: the structure of the Cheltenham High School curriculum, the prestige of the honors programs there, the precision of student assessment, and the problems with the appeals process.

Rose I. Szul, a prominent Eastern European art history scholar, author, critic and music educator, died Monday. She lived in Philadelphia. Her age was not disclosed. For more than half a century, Szul was proprietor of Rose Szul Music Studies, which offered instruction in piano and music theory at schools in Philadelphia, New York City, Jersey City and Passaic, N.J. She stopped operating the schools when her health began to fail in 1973. A woman of diverse intellectual interests who continued her scholarly pursuits until death, she was a member of Mensa and a founding member of the Ukrainian Literary and Art Club of New York.

Bobbye James Burke, 79, of Center City, who worked to preserve Rittenhouse Square as a vibrant and vital neighborhood, died of complications from heart surgery Friday at Hahnemann University Hospital. In 1972, Mrs. Burke became the first woman elected president of the Center City Residents' Association, which was founded in 1947 to stop Rittenhouse Square from being dug up for an underground parking lot. As president, she lobbied for improving the transit system, developing open space, and enforcing the zoning code.