Arts Obituaries

Michael Tilson Thomas, acclaimed American conductor, has died at the age of 81

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:55:22 GMT

Like his mentor Leonard Bernstein, Tilson Thomas was known for his communication skills and his ability to attract new audiences to classical music.

Gino Paoli, leading voice of postwar Italian popular music, dies at 91

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 01:15:15 GMT

Paoli’s work helped define the “cantautore” tradition and expressed Italy’s complex cultural transformation amid postwar reconstruction and social change.

British playwright, screenwriter Tom Stoppard (1937-2025): Dazzling, erudite, damaged by history

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 02:48:03 GMT

His identification of Marxism and communism with the repression of its Stalinist distortions hampered his work. He exemplified the intellectual crisis of the later 20th century.

Trump denounces actor-director Rob Reiner as “very bad for our country” following tragic killings

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 04:21:30 GMT

Reiner has been a household name in the US since his days on the immensely popular situation comedy "All in the Family" in the 1970s.

Legendary Stax Records guitarist Steve Cropper (1941-2025)

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 04:27:08 GMT

The death of Booker T. & the M.G.s’ guitarist Steve Cropper is something of an end of an era for soul and rock and roll.

Italian actress Claudia Cardinale and European cinema of the 1960s

Sat, 11 Oct 2025 02:51:15 GMT

For her beauty, intelligence and personal strength, she was sought out by many filmmakers.

Poet Tony Harrison: a classical voice

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 02:23:35 GMT

Harrison was always faithful to his vocation. “I hate being called poet/dramatist/translator/director,” he said. “Poet covers it all for me.”

American actor Robert Redford (1936-2025)

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 03:05:19 GMT

His popularity was not a fluke. Redford brought charm, calm intelligence and sophistication to his best work. His was an appealing personality and presence, not simply based on his handsome face.

Terence Stamp (1938-2025): A supremely intelligent actor

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 23:31:11 GMT

Stamp identified himself as part of “the first wave of the educated, real, working class.”

Tom Lehrer, satirical singer-songwriter of the 1960s, is dead at 97

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 01:36:34 GMT

Lehrer, trained as a mathematician at Harvard, taught for many decades after his performing and songwriting career ended around 1970.

The work of theatre director Robert Wilson (1941-2025)

Thu, 14 Aug 2025 22:43:03 GMT

“I do theatre, I do not do meanings”—exchange between Robert Wilson and film director Katharina Otto-Bernstein.

David Cousins, songwriter and singer for the Strawbs, dead at 85

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 02:01:05 GMT

Cousins was widely recognized for his emotionally dynamic and expressive voice. He could shift from fragile vulnerability to commanding or angry theatricality within a single phrase.

Sly Stone (1943–2025), a funk pioneer who rejected musical and racial boundaries

Sat, 28 Jun 2025 01:07:09 GMT

Famous for his hits with Sly and the Family Stone, the abundantly talented musician created infectious and enduring music in the 1960s and 1970s.

Alfred Brendel, world-famous classical pianist, is dead at 94

Tue, 24 Jun 2025 00:34:05 GMT

The Czech-born, Austrian pianist had wide interests and an international outlook, and was best known for his dedication to the works of Beethoven and Schubert.

Brian Wilson (1942-2025) expressed both joy and tragedy through his harmonies

Mon, 23 Jun 2025 02:42:32 GMT

Brian Wilson and the band he founded, the Beach Boys, made an indelible mark on American popular music.

Was Palestinian artist-photojournalist Fatima Hassouna targeted for death by the Israeli military?

Sat, 19 Apr 2025 01:18:05 GMT

The first thing one needs to do is dismiss with contempt the claims of IDF officials, who lie as often as they draw breath.

American filmmaker David Lynch (1946-2025)

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 02:48:35 GMT

Lynch attracted so much attention and interest in part because he stood out as an expressive, undoubtedly unusual figure in the generally bleak cultural landscape of the Reagan-Bush-Clinton years.

Palestinian artist and community activist Dorgham Quraiqi: Another victim of the Israeli genocide

Sun, 23 Mar 2025 23:27:56 GMT

The self-taught painter, who had recently married, devoted his energies to organizing workshops and teaching displaced children to express themselves through art.

Soul, rhythm and blues and jazz singer Roberta Flack, 1937-2025

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 01:46:32 GMT

At her peak, the singer’s music was capable of great depth, sincerity and emotional intimacy, which she seemingly conjured from thin air.

Actor Gene Hackman (1930-2025): A great American realist

Sat, 08 Mar 2025 04:00:31 GMT

Hackman brought an acute, artistically informed urgency and honesty to his roles that often transcended the conceptions and methods of the filmmaker in question.

Marianne Faithfull (1946-2025), tough and unflinching: A survivor of the “Swinging Sixties”

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 02:59:49 GMT

Particularly in the second half of her career, Faithfull produced work which stood head and shoulders above much of the vacuous music pumped out by the major international music concerns.

Garth Hudson, The Band’s last surviving member, dies at 87

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 04:29:33 GMT

The last of the five members of the iconic American rock group, The Band, Garth Hudson’s death is the end of an era.

Canadian writer Alice Munro 1931–2024, an assessment

Fri, 20 Dec 2024 02:10:44 GMT

Canadian short-story writer Alice Munro’s death earlier this year should be the occasion for assessing and reassessing problems with contemporary fiction.

Figurative painter Frank Auerbach dies aged 93: “Our voices carry ...”

Mon, 25 Nov 2024 22:08:10 GMT

In Auerbach, we have one of the few artists whose paintings glow with a light that believes in the possibilities of life and humanity.

Comic, effervescent Teri Garr, US actress, dies at 79

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 02:42:41 GMT

The actress brightly and effectively enlivened numerous films and television series in the 1970s and 1980s in particular.

Acclaimed actor James Earl Jones: 1931-2024

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 00:50:27 GMT

Jones, one of the greatest American actors, also had a life story that is not well enough known.

Jazz saxophonist Benny Golson, known for his remarkable compositions, dies at 95

Wed, 09 Oct 2024 01:24:55 GMT

Golson was one of the few surviving jazz masters of the 1950s, a golden age during which the innovations of the 1940s, known as bebop, flowered into the swinging and accessible modern jazz.

Multifaceted performer, social critic Kris Kristofferson dies at 88

Mon, 07 Oct 2024 01:13:47 GMT

The singer-songwriter and film star maintained a commitment to artistic truth and a healthy opposition to oppression and conformity.

Maggie Smith (1934-2024): “I don’t tolerate fools, but then they don’t tolerate me”

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 17:07:15 GMT

She had little time for celebrity, saying: “One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act and one’s still acting.”

Artists with principle: Novelist Sally Rooney, actor Javier Bardem and author Jhumpa Lahiri protest Israeli mass murder in Gaza

Sat, 28 Sep 2024 03:16:30 GMT

Certain artists are demonstrating principle in the face of the world-historical crimes of Israel and its imperialist backers.

British blues legend John Mayall dead at 90

Mon, 05 Aug 2024 00:17:01 GMT

Mayall was among the most influential of the British blues musicians, as a player, organizer and inspirer.

An actor of the anti-establishment, Donald Sutherland, dies aged 88

Tue, 25 Jun 2024 01:48:27 GMT

Unlike Jane Fonda, who has done everything in her power to make the public forget her onetime radical days and views, Sutherland retained a general hostility to capitalism until his death.

British dramatist Trevor Griffiths (4 April 1935 – 29 March 2024): “I didn’t invent myself. The world invented me”

Mon, 08 Apr 2024 00:07:16 GMT

Trevor Griffiths, who died last week aged 88, was one of the outstanding radical dramatists of the last 50 years.

State funeral for Barry Humphries, creator of Dame Edna Everage and other Australian caricatures

Thu, 18 Jan 2024 23:49:26 GMT

Humphries’ larger than life characters originated as vehicles to deride and challenge the mind-numbing intellectual climate dominating Australian cultural life in the 1950s and 60s.

British writer Benjamin Zephaniah: an appreciation

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 01:48:34 GMT

A much loved poet, novelist and musician, Zephaniah remained true to the idealistic and angry concerns of his youth, opposing empire and all forms of oppression.

“The measure of my dreams”: Shane MacGowan (1957-2023)

Thu, 07 Dec 2023 23:28:04 GMT

The Pogues were one of the finest bands of the 1980s, infusing Irish traditional music with punk to give new voice to a young Irish diaspora. This owed very much to the poetic songwriting of Shane MacGowan.

The corporate media, Gaza and the death of television actor Matthew Perry

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 04:04:57 GMT

Although the death of Matthew Perry at age 54 is a tragedy, the inordinate attention paid by the corporate media to the TV actor—while genocide is being carried out against Palestinians in Gaza by the Israeli government—reveals both the fears and preoccupations of the capitalist ruling establishment.

Robbie Robertson, lead guitarist of the Band, dead at 80

Mon, 21 Aug 2023 03:46:03 GMT

The Canadian-born guitarist and songwriter spent 16 years on the road with The Band before embarking on a musical career in Los Angeles scoring movies and producing records.

Detroit singer-songwriter Sixto Rodriguez who won acclaim in South Africa dead at 81

Mon, 14 Aug 2023 03:29:50 GMT

The subject of a 2012 biography about his South African audience searching for him, Rodriguez died at 81 years of age.

Tony Bennett (1926–2023): An artist who combined jazz and the American Songbook to elevate popular culture

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 03:56:28 GMT

Bennett’s vast audience, including new generations who first heard him in the 1990s, demonstrated there was a hunger in the population for music and lyrics of artistry and honesty, in contrast to the “gangster rap,” synthetic show tunes and banal “hits” by celebrity performers pumped out by the entertainment moguls.

Cormac McCarthy (1933-2023): Chronicler of American carnage

Thu, 22 Jun 2023 23:19:12 GMT

His works are so permeated with misanthropy and a hostility to human progress that his literary output represents a step back from the great American writers of the 20th century.

Glenda Jackson (1936–2023): “The best theatre is about trying to find and tell the truth”

Wed, 21 Jun 2023 02:09:14 GMT

Her acting was self-critical and unsentimental, driven, director Charles Marowitz said, by a “loathing for lame and easy effects.”

British novelist Martin Amis: The voice of a horrible era

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 23:38:10 GMT

Amis was lauded in life and now in death because he was a man not simply of his time, but of a deeply reactionary upper-middle-class social milieu.

Tina Turner (1939-2023): A performer of great power and universal appeal

Mon, 29 May 2023 03:31:19 GMT

For decades, American singer Tina Turner was one of the most universally beloved performers of popular music. Her career lasted from the late 1950s, when she was still in high school, into the 2020s, more than 60 years.

Famed pianist and chamber musician Menahem Pressler is dead at age of 99

Wed, 17 May 2023 23:02:15 GMT

This world-famous musician, who was born in Germany and escaped the Nazis 84 years ago, lived through the terror of Kristallnacht, the murderous antisemitic pogrom that took place in 1938.

Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot dead at 84

Thu, 04 May 2023 02:35:01 GMT

A remarkable talent and sincere and honest performer, Lightfoot's music is widely cherished in both the US and Canada.

“Those he inspired will rise up, and like him, use their talents and their passions for good”—Minamata director Andrew Levitas marks the passing of composer Ryuichi Sakamoto

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 13:07:11 GMT

The death late last month of the multi-talented Ryuichi Sakamoto has seen an outpouring of tributes on social media from his artistic collaborators and fans.

Novelist Russell Banks (1940-2023): “Go, my book, and help destroy the world as it is.”

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 02:43:25 GMT

The American writer Russell Banks, who wrote about the lives of working-class people and historical figures such as John Brown, died on January 3 at the age of 82.

On the death of German writer Hans Magnus Enzensberger (1929–2022)

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 02:59:04 GMT

The intellectual life, literary and political history of Germany after 1945 cannot be imagined without the poet and writer Hans Magnus Enzensberger.

Folk-rock pioneer and social critic David Crosby dead at 81

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 23:19:31 GMT

Singer, guitarist and songwriter David Crosby, who helped found what became known as folk-rock music with the Byrds and Crosby, Stills and Nash, died after a long illness January 18.