YBA Angus Fairhurst Dead at 41

COLOGNE, Germany—Philips de Pury & Co. has hired Gerard Goodrow as business development director for a new office and showroom in Cologne. Goodrow served most recently as the director of Art Cologne for almost five years but stepped down in January amid concerns over the declining credibility of the fair. Before that, he worked as a director of contemporary art at Christie's International in London.

OTTAWA, Canada—Karen Kain has resigned from her position as chairwoman of the Canada Council for the Arts, which she has held since September 2004. Kain, who is also the artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada, wrote in a letter that she wants to spend more time on the ballet company. Vice-chair Simon Brault will assume the position until a new chair is appointed by the government.

NEW YORK—MoMA has announced that Kim Mitchell has been promoted to the new position of director of communications, advertising, and graphics. Mitchell has served as the director of communications since 2002 and will now oversee a newly integrated department of advertising and graphics. She began at MoMA in 1997 as a publicist, moving up to senior publicist in 1998 and assistant director of communications in 1999.

NEW YORK—Christie's has named Amy Cappellazzo and Jeanne Sloane deputy chairmen for Christie's Americas. Both women already hold senior vice president positions, Cappellazzo serving as the senior vice president and international co-head of postwar and contemporary art and Sloane as the senior vice president and head of the silver and vertu department for Christie's Americas. Cappellazzo played a key role in Christie's May 2004 sale of postwar and contemporary art, which was the first of its kind to break $100 million. Sloane launched the first exclusive auction of silver by Georg Jensen in 2005, which brought in almost $9 million. The women will continue in their current roles in addition to adopting the positions of deputy chairmen. 

WINNIPEG, Canada—The Winnipeg Art Gallery has named Stephen Borys as its new director. Borys, currently the chief curator at the John and Marble Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Fla., will assume the position on June 15. He replaces Pierre Arpin, who left the gallery last fall to become the head of visual arts at the Canada Council. Borys's past positions include assistant curator at the National Gallery in Ottawa, curator at the Allen Art Museum, teaching at Oberlin College, and his work at the Ringling Museum, where he reinstalled the institution's 21 galleries, created iPod tours, and raised millions of dollars to create an endowment to cover the cost of his postition. 

Farewells
LONDON—British art historian Michael Podro died on March 28 at the age of 77.  Podro is known for having helped transform the field of art history in Britain by drawing on the German art historical tradition and introducing a more intellectual and cultural approach to the discipline. He served as the head of the department of art history at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, a lecturer in the philosophy of art at Warburg Institute, and a reader and professor in the department of art history and theory at Essex University. His most important books include Manifold in Perception: Theories of Art from Kant to Hildenbran (1972), Critical Historians of Art (1982), and Depiction (1998). Podro was also a trustee of the Victoria and Albert Museum from 1987 to 1996. 

MINNEAPOLIS—Architect Ralph Rapson died on March 29 at the age of 93. Rapson was best known for designing the old Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. His other works include U.S. embassies in Stockholm, Sweden, and Copenhagen, Denmark, as well as a line of furniture for Knoll and a recent line of prefabricated modern houses called the Rapson Greenbelt, designed by his firm, Ralph Rapson & Associates, Inc. He served as the head of the University of Minnesota School of Architecture for 30 years, from 1954 to 1984.

BRIDGE OF ORCHY, Scotland—Angus Fairhurst, one of the Young British Artists, was found dead on March 29 in a remote part of Scotland. He took his own life at the age of 41. Fairhurst was among the 16 Goldsmiths College students who participated in the influential YBA exhibition "Freeze," which was organized by Damien Hirst, in 1988. He also showed at the Tate Britain in 2004 with Hirst and Sarah Lucas. Born in Pembury, Kent, Fairhurst was known primarily for his bronze gorilla sculptures. Damien Hirst said over the weekend, "He was a great artist and a great friend, he always supported me in fair weather and foul. He shone like the moon and as an artist he had just the right amount of slightly-round-the-bend. I loved him."