Remembering Cat Frazier, Susan Michod, and Joel Snyder
This week, we honor a designer who changed the internet, a Pattern and Decoration painter, and one of the first photography professors in the US.
In Memoriam is published every Wednesday afternoon and honors those we recently lost in the art world.
Cat Frazier (1991–2026)
Champion of a retro-maximalist internet aesthetic
The graphic designer revolted against minimalistic trends in contemporary design and visual culture, revamping the aesthetics of the wilder, rawer early internet through AnimatedText, a 2010s Tumblr page that showcased text-based GIFs and eventually garnered half a million followers. Her work kickstarted an era of web aesthetics we are arguably still in, defined by pop graphics, intentionally "bad" design, and a nihilistic irony.
“I think she was one of the great pop artists of the 21st-century internet culture,” writer and critic Adrian Chen said in an interview. "By reappropriating all of this tossed off or forgotten pop culture of an earlier age, [she] showed how you can really make these things your own.”
Khaled Al Awar (1948–2026)
Gallerist and arts champion
After moving to the United States from Lebanon in 1970, he established Primavera Gallery in Ojai, California, which exhibited emerging artists working in a variety of media. He was also the owner of the Ojai Playhouse Theater, a local arts landmark, and received the Lifetime Achievement Award in the Arts from the city in 2017.
Walter Kershaw (1940–2026)
British muralist and street artist
He started painting unsanctioned large-scale murals and planting public sculptures on underutilized urban properties in England in the 1970s and '80s, attracting wide attention. Sometimes known as "Britain's first street artist," his works are held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Collection of Brazilian Art in São Paulo, and more.
Susan Michod (1945–2026)
Pattern and Decoration painter
The feminist painter, who made her works through acts of tearing, collaging, sponging, spattering, and adding splashes of glitter, was at the vanguard of the Pattern and Decoration movement. In 1973, she founded the Chicago women artists' collaborative Artemisia Gallery.
Joel Snyder (1940–2026)
Photographer and scholar
Among the first scholars in the US to teach the history of photography, he was instrumental in bringing the medium from the margins to the center of art history. He studied the rise of commercial photography in the 1800s, and urged all scholars of a medium to understand how works are made; his own photographs are in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Timothy White Eagle (1966–2026)
Multidisciplinary and performance artist
Their performance work, such as the large-scale immersive work The Indigo Room (2023), is rooted in theater, ritual, and storytelling. They founded the performance art and coffeehouse venue the Coffee Messiah in Seattle in the 1990s, and they collaborated with artists like photographer Adrian Chesser and actor and playwright Taylor Mac.
