Obituaries

Highlights

  1. Stephen Adams, Who Made Yale Music School Tuition-Free, Dies at 86

    A billionaire businessman and a late-blooming piano aficionado, he set a record with the anonymous $100 million gift that he and his wife gave the school.

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    Stephen Adams in 2001. The $100 million that he and his wife gave to the Yale Music School was the largest the school ever received.
    CreditChâteau Fonplégade
  2. Richard Serra, Who Recast Sculpture on a Massive Scale, Dies at 85

    His tilted walls of rusting steel, monumental blocks and other immense and inscrutable forms created environments that had to be walked through, or around, to be fully experienced.

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    Richard Serra in 2005 with one of his steel works. Some of them evoked ancient temples or sacred sites.
    CreditRichard Serra/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rafa Rivas, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
  3. Marjorie Perloff, Leading Scholar of Avant-Garde Poetry, Dies at 92

    A forceful advocate for experimental poetry, she argued that a critic’s task was not to search for meaning, but to explicate the form and texture of a poem.

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    Marjorie Perloff in 2016. She managed to parse and explain experimental and conceptual poetry in clear, jargon-free books and essays for both academic and general-interest readers.
    CreditAlan Thomas
  4. Lee Berry, Black Panther in a ‘Radical Chic’ Time, Dies at 78

    He was one of the prosecuted Panther 21 in New York, and his account of abuse in jail was a catalyst for Leonard Bernstein’s famous Park Avenue fund-raising party.

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    Lee Berry, who became a commercial photographer, in an undated photo. As a Black Panther, he accused New York City corrections officers of beating him in jail after he had been rousted from a hospital bed. His account was an impetus for a famous fund-raising party for the Panthers held in 1970 at Leonard Bernstein’s Park Avenue duplex.
    Creditvia Berry Family
  5. Lisa Lane, Chess Champion Whose Reign Was Meteoric, Dies at 90

    She was the first chess player to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. But people focused more on her looks than on her ability.

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    Lisa Lane in 1963. She was a late bloomer when it came to chess, but she learned quickly.
    CreditDave Pickoff/Associated Press

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Overlooked

More in Overlooked ›
  1. Overlooked No More: Henrietta Leavitt, Who Unraveled Mysteries of the Stars

    The portrait that emerged from her discovery, called Leavitt’s Law, showed that the universe was hundreds of times bigger than astronomers had imagined.

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    Henrietta Leavitt in an undated photo. Her discovery, often referred to as Leavitt’s Law, underpinned the research of other pioneering astronomers.
    CreditPopular Astronomy, via Library of Congress
  2. Overlooked No More: Yvonne Barr, Who Helped Discover a Cancer-Causing Virus

    A virologist, she worked with the pathologist Anthony Epstein, who died last month, in finding for the first time that a virus that could cause cancer. It’s known as the Epstein-Barr virus.

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    Yvonne Barr in 1962. Her techniques in growing cell cultures in a controlled environment aided in the discovery of the Epstein-Barr virus.
    CreditGregory Morgan
  3. Overlooked No More: Miriam Solovieff, Lauded Violinist Who Suffered Tragedy

    She led a successful career despite coping with a horrific event that she witnessed at 18: the killing of her mother and sister at the hands of her father.

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    Miriam Solovieff in the 1960s. After the deaths of her family members, the violin became her sole emotional and financial means of coping.
    CreditMark B. Anstendig
  4. Overlooked No More: Betty Fiechter, Pioneer in the World of Watches

    She started out at Blancpain as an apprentice and eventually took over as an owner, a move that one industry insider noted was “totally unprecedented” for a woman.

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    Betty Fiechter in 1935, two years after she became the owner of the watch company Blancpain.
    CreditBlancpain
  5. Overlooked No More: Pierre Toussaint, Philanthropist and Candidate for Sainthood

    He became wealthy working as a hairdresser in New York, then used his funds to free enslaved people, build churches and house orphans of color.

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    A portrait of Pierre Toussaint from 1825.
    CreditRobert Caplin for The New York Times
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  5. The Art of Babar

    For more than seven decades, Laurent de Brunhoff painted the adventures of the world’s most beloved elephant.

     
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