Art School

Albert W. Hampson, 79, a top magazine illustrator who found the inspiration for his work and many of the subjects he painted in everyday Philadelphia life, died Monday of a heart attack at his home in Newtown Square. During a career of more than a half-century, Mr. Hampson, a former semi- professional football player, did at least a dozen cover illustrations for the old Saturday Evening Post, as well as illustrations for the former Look magazine and other publications. "He focused on real people, he focused on situations that could happen in real life," said son Ted Hampson, who is a journalist.

Keith Stimson seemed to be the boy most likely to succeed, satisfy his teachers and make his parents proud. He also seemed to be the boy least likely to be slain. But he was. On Wednesday, the 17-year-old's body was found lying in a fetal position in a field behind his Jolly Road home in Plymouth Township. He was killed by a gunshot wound to the head as he walked home from a friend's house, Plymouth police said. "We've all racked our brains trying to figure out why," said Bob Everitt Jr., choreographer of the Plymouth-Whitemarsh High School band.

A popular Chester County teenager eager to begin his second year of art school died early Friday morning in a one-vehicle car crash. Oscar "Okie" G. Regalado, 19, of Kennett Square, one of two passengers in a 1999 Audi driven by Alexander B. Moore, 19, of West Chester, was taken by helicopter to Crosier Chester Medical Center, where he died of his injuries, police said Saturday. Moore and the other passenger, Justin P. Stearn, 19, of West Chester, sustained moderate injuries, police said.

Bernard E. Sheridan, 64, formerly of Trevose, a retired auto salesman and former art teacher, died on Friday at St. Mary Medical Center in Middletown Township. He had been at the Richboro Care Center for the last 1 1/2 years after suffering a stroke. For many years before his 1987 retirement, he was a salesman for auto dealerships in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. After graduating from art school, he had taught in New Jersey public schools. Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Sheridan graduated in 1953 from Northeast Catholic High School.

Clarence Holbrook Carter, 96, a nationally recognized artist whose career spanned 80 years, died Sunday at his home in Holland Township, N.J. An Ohio native and a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art, Carter was a realist painter in his early career but later in life began to adopt a more mystical attitude toward life and art. His 1994 solo exhibition at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown featured paintings that addressed the...

Oscar Ernest Mertz Jr., 91, of Germantown, a professor emeritus at the University of the Arts who was instrumental in developing a study program that has become a standard at art schools around the country, died of liver cancer Wednesday at his home. Mr. Mertz and three of his colleagues created a visual-arts program that provided freshmen with a foundation in the basics of sculpture, drawing, painting and graphic design. The program forced students to learn the fundamental concepts at work in all the visual arts, instead of only those in their major area of study, said Lauren Montenegro, assistant director of alumni relations at the school.

One was an aspiring young artist planning to attend art school. The other, a bubbly teen-ager dreaming about her prom, her graduation, turning 18. Two high school seniors with their whole lives ahead of them. Until Friday, when they said goodbye to their parents and never came home. Police said the two Northeast Philadelphia girls - students at Archbishop Ryan High School - were killed in a drunken-driving accident early Saturday on Roosevelt Boulevard. They were passengers in a car driven by a 22-year-old Northeast Philadelphia man who lost control of his 1986 Chevrolet Cavalier while headed north on the Boulevard shortly after 1 a.m., police said.

On Aug. 6, a Chester County teen traveled to Bucks County to attend the funeral of his mentor, a longtime Unionville High School art teacher; a week later, the 19-year-old's own funeral had to be planned. The dual tragedies have left a searing void in the community, drawing hundreds to back-to-back memorial services on Tuesday evening. Jeffrey A. Wheet, 60, arrived in the district in 1984 after teaching at Woodrow Wilson High School in Bristol Township and in the Lower Merion School District.

The father of a 20-year-old man killed by an allegedly drunken driver in a head-on crash on I-95 on March 17 wants to memorialize his son with an art scholarship for Pennsbury High School students. Jordan Inselman, a 1998 Pennsbury graduate who loved to draw and planned to attend art school, died instantly when his southbound vehicle was struck head-on by a car traveling north in the southbound lanes north of Cottman Avenue. Michael Simone, 40, a copier repair technician from Northeast Philadelphia, is being held without bail awaiting trial on charges of murder, homicide by vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, involuntary manslaughter, and a separate charge of drunken driving.

Laura Leggett Barnes was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1874 into an old family that came to colonial America from the island of Barbados in the 18th century. She is remembered as petite, blond, blue-eyed and a faultless dresser. Those who knew her well described her as quiet, reserved, bright, and very much a lady. She was in sharp contrast to Albert Barnes of Philadelphia who, although he had a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania, came from a working-class family in the city's Kensington section and was a self-made man. Throughout his lifetime, Barnes developed a reputation as being abrasive, arrogant and contentious.