Remembering Bruno Lucchesi, Pat Oliphant, and Edward Lucie-Smith
Article excerpt
This week, we honor a figurative sculptor, a political cartoonist who revolutionized the form, and a prolific poet and writer.
In Memoriam is published every Wednesday afternoon and honors those we recently lost in the art world.
Bruno Lucchesi (1926, 2026) Figurative sculptor
Across a seven-decade career, he sculpted the human form in bronze, terracotta, marble, and more. His works are held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and many more.
"His genius is to express a joy of life even when he shows conditions that create misery and suffering," photographer and writer David Finn said in a statement, "for Lucchesi’s subjects seem to feel that being alive is its own reward."
Yaacov Agam (1928, 2026) Israeli kinetic artist
Yaacov Agam (photo Yaacov Agam via Facebook, screenshot Lisa Yin Zhang/Hyperallergic)
His sculptures, paintings, and public artworks, including what's hailed as the world's largest menorah and a singing, fire-breathing fountain, have a mystical strain to them. He was included in the milestone show The Responsive Eye at the Museum of Modern Art in 1965, and received a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1980.
Chua Mia Tee (1931, 2026) Singaporean social realist painter
Chua Mia Tee (photo @chuamiatee via Instagram, screenshot Lisa Yin Zhang/Hyperallergic)
One of Singapore's most acclaimed artists, he was a founding member of the Equator Art Society, which rejected Western modernism in favor of realism, in 1956. He won the Cultural Medallion, the nation's highest art prize, in 2015, and held a major retrospective at the National Gallery Singapore in 2021.
Dion E. Clarke (1928, 2026) Arts advocate and entrepreneur who championed Black artists
Dion E. Clarke (photo Sekou Luke, courtesy Harlem Fine Arts Show)
He dedicated his career to expanding opportunities for Black artists and access to collecting. He was the founder and CEO of the Harlem Fine Arts Show, the largest traveling African diasporic art exhibition in the United States, in 2009.
Edward Lucie-Smith (1933, 2026) British art critic and poet
Edward Lucie-Smith (photo @edwardluciesmith via Instagram, screenshot Lisa Yin Zhang/Hyperallergic)
Beginning in the 1970s, he wrote art reviews and profiles of artists like Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, as well as more than 100 books on subjects ranging from the male nude, sexuality in art, an art dictionary, and children's books. He curated exhibitions that included surveys of British art and retrospectives of Lin Emery and George Dunbar.
Rudolph “Rudy” Montanez (1942, 2026) Artist and educator
His work on paper and sculptures are included in collections such as the Yale University Art Gallery. He showed at the 1975 Whitney Biennial, and multiple exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art.
Pat Oliphant (1935, 2026) Political cartoonist who took on the powerful
His cartoons skewering presidents are widely seen to have revolutionized the form, and were syndicated across more than 500 newspapers at the height of his career. He skewered politicians, priests, and others in power, and also exhibited drawings and sculptures. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1967.