Obituaries - Obituary

Art in America, March, 2001 by Stephanie Cash, David Ebony

Esteban Vicente, 97, abstract painter, collagist and one of the last surviving members of the New York School, died Jan. 10 in Bridgehampton, N.Y. Vicente's early canvases and collages feature colored areas sometimes slashed through with heavy black lines, or variously hued square or rectangular forms. His compositions became simpler and looser through the years. In the '60s and '70s he began producing luminous stain paintings, a style that he would sustain with variations for the rest of his career.

The Spanish-born artist first studied to be a sculptor, but switched to painting by 1928. He moved to Paris in 1929 to pursue his career. Though he knew such painters as Picasso and Max Ernst, his own works, which were shown in Paris and Barcelona, were painted from nature in a Fauvist or Impressionist style. In 1936, after the Spanish Civil War broke out, he moved to New York with his wife, Harriet, an American whom he had married the year before. At first, he worked as a portrait painter. During the '40s, Vicente gradually developed an abstract style. He shared a studio on 10th Street with Willem de Kooning and was an active member of The Club, a crucial forum for the Abstract Expressionists. Vicente was selected by Meyer Schapiro and Clement Greenberg for the "Talent 1950" show at the Kootz Gallery, after which he showed regularly at 10th Street galleries and elsewhere in the city. He was a founding faculty member of the New York Studio School. Over the years he showed with Leo Castelli, Andre Emmerich and finally Berry-Hill Galleries, his representative since 1989. His last exhibition there, a show of works on paper from the '50s and '60s, was in spring 2000. A retrospective of his work was held at Madrid's Reina Sofia in 1998, the same year that his namesake museum opened in Segovia, Spain, near his birthplace.

Morris Lapidus, 98, architect, died Jan. 18 in Miami Beach. Lapidus became notorious in the 1950s, an era that liked its modernism discreet, for flamboyant hotel designs that were often called gaudy, garish, splashy and colossal. His first two hotels were in Miami Beach, the landmark Fontainebleau (1954) and the Eden Roc (1955), followed by the Americana in Bal Harbour (now the Sheraton Bal Harbour). In New York, he designed the Summit Hotel (now the Loews) and the Americana (now the Sheraton Center). Critically assailed for a populist style of excessive grandeur, Lapidus attained immense commercial success. He designed hundreds of structures, including hospitals, office buildings, synagogues and condominiums, in addition to about 200 other hotels. He finally enjoyed some critical acclaim in the '80s, when postmodern architects and designers, including Philippe Starck, Alessandro Mendini and Rem Koolhaas, and writers of similar persuasion, began praising his sweeping lines, curved edges, bold use of color and sense of visual drama. He is also credited with having a significant influence on the extravagant architecture of Las Vegas. His autobiography, Too Much Is Never Enough, was published in 1996. Last year he was presented with an award for lifetime achievement by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

Robert Schwartz, 52, painter, died of heart failure on Dec. 5, in San Francisco. Known for refined, diminutive figurative works that are sometimes linked to Magic Realism, the Chicago-born artist studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and showed at Richard Gray Gallery before moving to California in the late 1960s. There, he had numerous solo exhibitions at Hackett-Freedman Gallery. His most recent New York exhibition was at Forum Gallery in 1995; a survey of his work was presented at Seattle's Frye Art Museum last year.

Frederick Hughes, 57, collector and Andy Warhol's business manager, died Jan. 14 of complications of multiple sclerosis. From 1961 to '67, Hughes studied at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, whose art-history department was financed by Jean and Dominique de Menil. The couple befriended the young Hughes, took him on art-buying trips to New York and Europe, and helped him get his first job at a Paris gallery. In 1967, Hughes was introduced to Warhol by Henry Geldzahler and became manager of the Factory in 1973. He was the publisher of Warhol's magazine, Interview, from 1970 to 1989. Hughes became executor of Warhol's estate after the artist's death in 1987 and helped set up the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, which distributes grants to nonprofit organizations. In 1990, Hughes appointed Archibald L. Gillies as foundation president. An acrimonious relationship ensued, resulting in Hughes's expulsion in 1992. In a high-profile case that year, the foundation was sued by Edward W. Hayes, the estate lawyer, over fees that were determined by the value of Warhol's art. Hayes won a $7.2-million settlement which was reduced on appeal to $3.5 million [see "Artworld," Apr. '96]. Hughes also organized the highly successful Sotheby's auction of Warhol's personal collection of art and objects, which brought $25.3 million.