Remembering Calvin Tompkins, Rhoda Roberts, and Agosto Machado
This week, we honor a celebrated art writer, a champion of First Nations culture, a downtown NYC performance artist and activist, and others.
In Memoriam is published every Wednesday afternoon and honors those we recently lost in the art world.
Calvin Tomkins (1925–2026)
Celebrated art writer
On staff at the New Yorker for more than 60 years, Tomkins penned elegant, refined, and iconic profiles of artists like Marcel Duchamp, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jean Tinguely. His crystalline prose shook off art jargon, cutting cleanly to the core of each subject he took on. “I go around and get a sense of what’s going on and then write about something that interests me,” he once said about what compelled him in his process.
He published several books on subjects as wide-ranging as postmodern art, the 1980s art world, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Living Well Is the Best Revenge (1971), one of his most celebrated books, is a biography of the real-life figures that inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night (1934), and the six-volume The Lives of Artists (2019), named after the famed Renaissance chronicler Giorgio Vasari, rounded up 82 of those profiles. Indeed, he was the Vasari of our time — our most faithful chronicler, a heartbeat of contemporary art.
In his final year, at age 99, he began keeping a journal. "It recently became clear that interviewing dozens of people, gathering mountains of material, and keeping it all in my head has become increasingly difficult, what with my porous memory and failing eyesight," he wrote. "So why not just accept the inevitable and enjoy a year or two of leisure? I’ve tried that, and no thanks."
Brad Bucher (1942–2026)
Art collector and patron
With his wife, Leslie Bucher, he was an active patron of the arts in Houston. The couple lent their names to an art space housing their collection and an artist-in-residence program at Rice University, and contributed deeply to institutions like the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and more.
Philip Castle (1942–2026)
British airbrush artist
He was responsible for some of the most iconic album covers and film posters in history, including the poster of A Clockwork Orange (1971) and the cover of David Bowie's Aladdin Sane (1973).
Thomas Gentille (1936–2026)
Master jeweler and teacher
He was a maker of conceptual pieces that recalled Minimalist art, using materials like wood, acrylic, aluminum, and more. His work has been exhibited at venues like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Victoria & Albert Museum, and he taught at the Parsons School of Design, among other institutions.
Charlotte Gere (1937–2026)
Art historian
She authored more than 20 scholarly and popular books on jewelry, the Arts & Crafts movement, Pre-Raphaelite women, and more. With her husband, John Gere, keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, she amassed a collection of 18th- and 19th-century landscape oil sketches.
Robert L. “Larry” Godwin (1934–2026)
Alabama sculptor who blended engineering and art
The renowned Alabama sculptor and painter created the beloved "Rusty" the red dog at the Kentuck Art Center in Northport, as well as murals and public art at places such as the Pioneer Museum in Troy. He was also known for abstract compositions, fountains, and more, often blending hydraulics, fabrication, and art.
Sam Kieth (1963–2026)
Comic artist
He created comic series like The Maxx (1993–98) and The Sandman (1989–ongoing) for Marvel, DC Comics, and more, and directed episodes for cartoons such as Cow and Chicken (1997–99).
Carol Kitman (1930–2026)
Photographer who documented brothers for decades
A chance encounter with the twins Alexander and Eugene Vindman in Brooklyn in 1980 led to a decades-long project in which she photographed them at bar mitzvahs, weddings, and more. Notably, she captured them during their testimony against President Trump for allegedly pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden.
Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna (1940–2026)
Russian-Italian artist and educator
Perhaps most famed for his photographs of the 1966 flood of Florence, he held more than 150 solo exhibitions across five continents during his lifetime. He helped set up printmaking departments in colleges around Florence, working as a teacher and printmaking technician.
Agosto Machado (d. 2026)
Performance artist, activist, and archivist
A major figure of the New York City downtown art scene of the 1960s, he was part of the Stonewall uprising of 1969, and became a caregiver to many artists during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. His work is currently on view in the 2026 Whitney Biennial, and he has shown at Gordon Robichaux Gallery, Maureen Paley Gallery, and more.
Egidio Marzona (1944–2026)
German-Italian art collector and patron
His vast collections, particularly ephemera from the Dada, Bauhaus, and Fluxus movements, shaped the study and definition of avant-garde 20th-century art. Across his life, he donated massive portions of his holdings to German museums and libraries.
Rhoda Roberts (1959–2026)
Australian champion of First Nations art
The arts administrator, curator, actor, and more introduced much of the world to Indigenous Australian culture through the opening ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. She was also a cofounder of the Aboriginal National Theatre Trust, a co-presenter of First in Line, focusing on Indigenous people and culture, among many other roles.
Marica Vilcek (1936–2026)
Art historian and philanthropist
She worked at and sat on the board of institutions like the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava, Slovakia; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and New York University's Institute of Fine Arts. In 2000, she founded the Vilcek Foundation, which funds biomedical research and arts, and held a significant collection of Pre-Columbian art and Native American pottery.
Desmond Williams (1932–2026)
Architect of Catholic Modernist churches
He designed more than 20 Modernist churches in the 1960s and '70s, collaborating with noted artists. He leaves a legacy as one of the most important architects of the Catholic Modernist movement.
