Serenade for Don Cornelius from Stevie Wonder circa 1971

Let's celebrate the Greats...
Be sure to listen to the serenade song at the end of the clip for Don. Classic.

R.I.P. Mike Kelley (1954 – 2012)

Another great loss. Steve Paul Jobs (1955-2011)

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

- Steve Jobs

 

RIP Lucian Freud

One of the greatest painters of our time. You and your work will be missed.

Self-Portrait

Portrait of Francis Bacon

Robert Rauschenberg dies at 82

Robert Rauschenberg (born Milton Ernst Rauschenberg; October 22, 1925 - May 12, 2008) was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art.^[1][2]

Rauschenberg is perhaps most famous for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations. While the Combines are both painting and sculpture, Rauschenberg has also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking, and performance. Rauschenberg had a tendency to pick up the trash that interested him on the streets of New York City and bringing it back to his studio to use it in this works. He claimed he "wanted something other than what I could make myself and I wanted to use the surprise and the collectiveness and the generosity of finding surprises. And if it wasn't a surprise at first, by the time I got through with it, it was. So the object itself was changed by its context and therefore it became a new thing."^[3]

In 1953, Rauschenberg stunned the art world by erasing a drawing by de Kooning. In 1964 Rauschenberg was the first American artist to win the Grand Prize at the Venice Biennale (Mark Tobey and James Whistler had previously won the Painting Prize). Since then he has enjoyed a rare degree of institutional support. Rauschenberg lived and worked in New York City and on Captiva Island, Florida until his death on May 12, 2008.

Words from Wikipedia

Story in NYTimes