Art Dealer and Collector Hildy Beyeler Dead at 86

© Kurt Wyss

The late art dealer and collector Hildy Beyeler

© 2008 Patrick McMullan Photography

The new chief cultural officer for the city of Philadelphia, Gary Steuer, with the late Kitty Carlisle Hart

Richard Kidd

Send a letter to the Editor

Save to Del.icio.us Digg this

NEW YORK—MoMA announced that Juliet Kinchin has joined the department of architecture and design as curator. Kinchin has held curatorial positions in decorative arts at Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries and at London's Victoria & Albert Museum. She has also held faculty positions in the history of art and design at the Glasgow School of Art, the University of Glasgow, and the Bard Graduate Center for Study in the Decorative Arts. 

PHILADELPHIA—Mayor Michael Nutter has reinstated Philadelphia's office of arts, culture and creative economy, which was cut four years ago by former Mayor John Street, and named Gary Steuer as the city's chief cultural officer. Steuer was formerly the vice president of private sector affairs at the New York–based Americans for the Arts, as well as the executive director of the Arts & Business Council of Americans for the Arts. He served as president and CEO of the Arts & Business Council from 1996 to 2005.

Farewells
BASEL—Art collector and dealer Hildy Beyeler died on July 18 at the age of 86, after a long illness. Beyeler and her husband Ernst built up their famed collection over 50 years, keeping some paintings they didn't want to sell to decorate their homes. They established the Fondation Beyeler in 1982 to house the collection, and in 1997, the foundation opened as a public museum in Basel designed by Renzo Piano. The roughly 200 works in the collection include pieces by Francis Bacon, Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollock, and Vincent van Gogh. The Beyelers were also instrumental in the creation of the Art Basel fair in the 1970s.

MANILA, Philippines—British artist and children's book author Richard Kidd died on July 21 while swimming in the Dunsulan Falls in Bataan, Philippines. According to local reports, Kidd, 56, went into the water and was swept under by the falls, which were swollen from rains. He was pulled from the water alive but died shortly thereafter. Kidd was known for his abstract landscape paintings, which have been exhibited internationally at such venues as the Museums of Modern Art in San Francisco and Rio de Janeiro and the Rowan and Serpentine galleries in London. His children's books include his self-illustrated debut, Almost Famous Daisy!, and Monsieur Thermidor: A Fantastic Fishy Tale.