Remembering Bou Meng, Mary Heilmann, and Kumantjayi (Walala) Tjapaltjarri
This week, we honor a figurehead of genocide remembrance, a pioneering abstract artist, and an Aboriginal Australian painter.
In Memoriam is published every Wednesday afternoon and honors those we recently lost in the art world.
Bou Meng (1941–2026)
Cambodian painter who survived the Khmer Rouge
His ability to paint propaganda portraits of then-Cambodian dictator Pol Pot and other leaders, including China's Chairman Mao Zedong and North Korea's President Kim Il Sung, led to his being one of only seven people known to have lived through the Khmer Rouge torture center in Cambodia. He was one of the most recognizable figures of Cambodian genocide remembrance, notably testifying before the national courts against a prison chief in 2009. Later, he began painting murals of holy scenes in meditation centers and Buddhist temples.
Bou Meng "actively contributed to the process of seeking justice for the victims," the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum said in a statement, adding that his death represented "the loss of an important historical witness to the crimes committed by the Pol Pot genocide against the Cambodian people."
Mary Heilmann (1940–2026)
Pioneering abstract artist
An abstract painter who rubbed elbows with artists like Richard Serra and Robert Smithson, she enjoyed a late-career renaissance in her 60s, when she began making the boxy plywood chairs for which she is best known. She received a solo show and retrospective at the New Museum, and her work has been shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Whitechapel Gallery in London, and more.
Daria Alyoshkina (1982–2026)
Ukrainian graphic artist, paper-cutter, and sculptor
Her sculptures have been shown across Ukraine and in Poland, and her vytynanky paper cuttings — a monochrome Ukrainian form — have been shown in the United States, Poland, France, Germany, and beyond.
Jack Crabtree (1938–2026)
British figurative painter
His social realist paintings of steelworkers, miners, and industrial communities drew upon his own working-class childhood. He documented coalfields in south Wales and became the first recipient of the Ruhr Arts Fellowship in 1977, which he spent documenting the German coal and steel industry.
John D. Edwards (1952–2026)
British painter and sculptor
He exhibited his luminous, semi-abstract paintings at galleries in London, New York, Chicago, and Tokyo until a cancer diagnosis, which led him to write and illustrate How Cancer Saved My Life (2007). In his work in the art world, notably at the Waddington Gallery, he crossed paths with artists like Jim Dine, Kenneth Noland, Dan Flavin, and more.
Robin Hill (1932–2026)
Wildlife artist and fixture of Washington, DC art
His hyper-detailed illustrations of the natural world — in particular, birds — recalled those of artist and naturalist John James Audubon. With his wife, Marcia Carter, he turned workspaces around Washington, DC into artistic salons.
Thora Jacobson (1949–2026)
Champion of art in Philadelphia
She was CEO of the Fleischer Art Memorial, executive director of the Philadelphia Art Alliance, director of design review for Mural Arts Philadelphia, chair of the Philadelphia Art Commission, among many more roles in the arts in the city. She was also a curator, served on juries for exhibitions, and wrote essays for catalogs and art books, winning the Visionary Woman Award from Moore College of Art and one for lifetime achievement from Tri-State Artists Equity.
Kumantjayi (Walala) Tjapaltjarri (d. 2026)
Australian Aboriginal painter
A member of the Papunya Tula, an artist cooperative of Aboriginal people from Australia's Western Desert, his paintings explore subjects such as the Tingari Cycle, an Aboriginal epic. He was one of the Pintupi Nine, a group of Indigenous nomads from Western Australia's Gibson Desert known for making contact with settler society in 1984, and his work is in notable collections internationally, including those of Steve Martin and Beyoncé.
Patrick Vilaire (1941–2026)
Haitian sculptor, painter, and ceramicist
He explored power, memory, oppression, death, Vodou, and Haitian history in his sculptures, paintings, and more. He was also a writer and researcher, and was named Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 1991 and received the Édouard Glissant Prize in 2010.
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