ST. LOUIS—The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis has appointed Karen Butler curator of collections, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. A postdoctoral fellow in Matisse studies at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, Butler has worked at the Guggenheim Museum as a research assistant and in the education department at the Museum of Modern Art. She begins at the Kemper on Jan. 9.

NEW YORK—The Rubin Museum of Art (RMA) announced that Vikas Kapoor has joined its board of trustees. Kapoor is the president and CEO of iQor, a business process outsourcing company. The RMA, located in Chelsea, is devoted to Himalayan art. "I look forward to helping the museum build on the opportunities they have created for the public to explore and appreciate the art of the Himalayas," said Kapoor.

DETROIT—Four new board members have been announced for the Detroit Institute of Arts: Charles E. Becker, chairman and owner of private investment firm Becker Ventures, LLC, and chairman of the Karmanos Cancer Center; Mark A. Douglas, president of Avis Ford and a former director of the United Negro College Fund of Detroit; Chacona W. Johnson, recently retired from the positions of chief of staff to University of Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman and associate vice president of development at the university; and Cynthia J. Pasky, founder, president, and CEO of Strategic Staffing Solutions.

Farewells
PARIS—French antiques dealer Didier Aaron died of a brain tumor on January 3 at the age of 85, the New York Times reports. Aaron, a specialist in fine French furniture, was a prominent figure in France's antiques world. He went into business in 1946 after fighting in the French Resistance in southern France during the war, and later opened branches in New York, Los Angeles (now closed), and London — a practice that was nearly unheard of at the time. He partnered with Parisian decorator Alain Demachy in the 1960s and is credited with starting the career of Jacques Grange, another Parisian decorator. Active beyond his business, Aaron organized several non-selling exhibitions with competitors to showcase antiques from the 18th century, and served as president of the Friends of the Camondo Museum and of the trade group Antiquaires à Paris.

RAMSEY, N.J.—Edd Cartier, a leading pulp magazine illustrator, died on December 25 at the age of 94, reports the New York Times. Born Edward Daniel Cartier, Edd created dark, noirish illustrations for the magazine The Shadow beginning in 1936. He was later recruited by another editor at Street & Smith's, which published The Shadow and a host of other pulps, to illustrated Unknown, a science fiction and fantasy magazine. His work was also featured in another science fiction pulp, Astounding Science Fiction, where it accompanied stories by L. Rob Hubbard, Isaac Asimov, and others. Early in Cartier's career, Norman Rockwell offered him a job as an assistant, but he turned it down; he later said he regretted doing so. After serving in World War II and returning to face a decline in pulp fiction, he worked as a draftsman for an engineering company and then as the art director of Mosstype, a printing company.

SALTAIRE, England—Contemporary artist Govinder Nazran died on December 30 at the age of 44 after suffering a seizure on Christmas day. Nazran was known for his stylized, naïve representations of dogs and cats in paintings with thick texturing and oriental overtones. He has been represented by Washington Green Fine Art Publishing since 1999, winning the distinction of Best Selling Published Artist at the Fine Art Trade Guild Awards in 2004. Previously, Nazran worked as a photographic art director, a designer for a greeting card company, and a freelance illustrator.

BEVERLY HILLS—Betty Freeman, an art collector and an avid supporter of new music, died on January 3 of pancreatic cancer at the age of 87, the New York Times reports. Throughout her lifetime of arts patronage, Freeman commissioned hundreds of notable pieces from roughly 80 contemporary composers. She also underwrote performances and recordings and held famous musical salons in her hometown of Los Angeles, where composers would present and discuss their works for a select audience of 100 people comprised of other composers, conductors, managers, and artists. She was the subject of David Hockney's famous 1966 painting Beverly Hills Housewife, and was herself a photographer who shot intimate portraits of musicians and composers, some of which are on display in the lobby at Carnegie Hall.