Perpich News

In Memoriam from Perpich Library

January 24, 2025

This month we are featuring a few of the visual and performing artists we lost in 2024. Although they are no longer with us, their work will live on.

All items on this list are available at the Perpich library. Click on titles for more information.

1. Dorothy Allison (1949-2024) – American Writer
“Dorothy Allison was an American writer whose writing focused on class struggle, sexual abuse, child abuse, feminism, and lesbianism. She was a self-identified lesbian femme. Allison won a number of awards for her writing, including several Lambda Literary Awards. In 2014, Allison was elected to membership in the Fellowship of Southern Writers.” – Wikipedia

Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
Bone, an illegitimate child in a family of social outcasts, sees her mother’s happiness with her new husband and will not tell when the stepfather begins abusing her in the 1950s.

2. Shelley Duvall (1949-2024) – American Actress and Producer
“Shelley Duvall was an American actress and producer. Known for her collaborations with Robert Altman and for playing eccentric characters, she won a Cannes Film Festival Award and was nominated for a British Academy Film Award and two Emmy Awards. Four of her films are preserved in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.” – Wikipedia

3 Women directed by Robert Altman and starring Shelley Duvall, Sissy Spacek, and Janice Rule
In a dusty, under-populated California resort town, Pinky Rose, a naive and impressionable Southern waif, begins her life as a nursing home attendant. There, Pinky finds her role model in fellow nurse Millie, a misguided would-be sophisticate and hopeless devotee of sophisticated ladies magazines.

3. Nikki Giovanni (1943-2024) – American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator
“Nikki Giovanni was an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. One of the world’s best-known African-American poets, her work includes poetry anthologies, poetry recordings, and nonfiction essays, and covers topics ranging from race and social issues to children’s literature. She won numerous awards, including the Langston Hughes Medal and the NAACP Image Award. She was nominated for a 2004 Grammy Award for her poetry album, The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection. Additionally, she was named as one of Oprah Winfrey’s 25 ‘Living Legends’. Giovanni was a member of The Wintergreen Women Writers Collective.” – Wikipedia

The 100 best African American poems : (*but I cheated) edited by Nikki Giovanni
Contains one hundred poems from classic and contemporary African American poets, as selected by award-winning black poet and activist Nikki Giovanni, including such writers as Robert Hayden, Mari Evans, Kevin Young, and Rita Dove.

4. Zakir Hussain (1951-2024) – Indian tabla player, composer, percussionist, music producer, and film actor
“Zakir Hussain was an Indian tabla player, composer, percussionist, music producer, and film actor. Widely regarded as the greatest tabla player of his generation and one of the greatest percussionists of all time, he was known for bringing Indian classical music to a global audience. He was the eldest son of the tabla player Alla Rakha, and won four Grammy Awards.” – Wikipedia

Venu performed by Hariprasad Chaurasia and Zakir Hussain
Venu is the ancient Sanskrit name for the bamboo flute that is today called bansuri. On this album, recorded live in 1974 at the Stone House in Fairfax, California, the bansuri is played by Indian classical instrumentalist Hariprasad Chaurasia. Chaurasia is joined by tabla player Zakir Hussain, who was one of the world’s leading virtuosos of Indian classical percussion.

5. Olivia Hussey (1951-2024) – British actress
“Olivia Hussey was a British actress. Her awards included a Golden Globe Award and a David di Donatello Award. The daughter of Argentine tango singer Osvaldo Ribó, Hussey was born in Buenos Aires but spent most of her early life in her mother’s native England. She aspired to become an actress at a young age and studied drama for five years at Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in London.” – Wikipedia

Romeo & Juliet directed by Franco Zeffirelli and starring Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting
Presents the Franco Zeffirelli production of Shakespeare’s tragedy about two teenagers who fall in love, encounter opposition from their families, and take their lives.

6. Judith Jamison (1943-2024) – American dancer and choreographer
“Judith Jamison was an American dancer and choreographer. She danced with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater from 1965 to 1980 and was Ailey’s muse. She later returned to be the company’s artistic director from 1989 until 2011, and then its artistic director emerita. She received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1999, the National Medal of Arts in 2001, and the Handel Medallion, New York City’s highest cultural honor, in 2010.” – Wikipedia

Dancing Spirit: An Autobiography by Judith Jamison
Illustrated with sixty photographs, Dancing Spirit is a candid and immediate self-portrait of a unique American artist whose work has left an indelible mark on the world of dance. Contains vivid portraits of many artists Jamison has worked with including: Agnes de Mille, Alvin Ailey, Jessye Norman, Geoffrey Holder, Carmen de Lavallade, and Mikhail Baryshnikov. And Jamison talks frankly about the price exacted by a dancer’s nomadic life–rootlessness, fleeting relationships, and the obsession with physical beauty.

7. N. Scott Momaday (1934-2024) – Kiowa and American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet
“N. Scott Momaday was a Kiowa and American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. His novel House Made of Dawn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969, and is considered the first major work of the Native American Renaissance.” – Wikipedia

House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
A young Native American, Abel has come home from war to find himself caught between two worlds. The first is the world of his grandfather’s, wedding him to the rhythm of the seasons, the harsh beauty of the land, and the ancient rites and traditions of his people. But the other world—modern, industrial America—pulls at Abel, demanding his loyalty, trying to claim his soul, and goading him into a destructive, compulsive cycle of depravity and despair.

8. Faith Ringgold (1930-2024) – American painter, author, mixed media sculptor, performance artist, and intersectional activist
“Faith Ringgold was an American painter, author, mixed media sculptor, performance artist, and intersectional activist, perhaps best known for her narrative quilts.” – Wikipedia

We Came to America by Faith Ringgold
A timely and beautiful look at America’s rich history of immigration and diversity, from acclaimed artist Faith Ringgold. Vividly expressed in Faith Ringgold’s sumptuous colors and patterns, We Came to America is an ode to every American who came before us, and a tribute to each child who will carry its proud message of diversity into our nation’s future.

9. Frank Stella (1936-2024) – American painter, sculptor, and printmaker
“Frank Stella was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. Stella’s work catalyzed the minimalist movement in the late 1950s. He created works which emphasized the picture-as-object. These were influenced by the abstract expressionist work of artists like Franz Kline and Jackson Pollock. He won notice in the New York art world in 1959 when his four black pinstripe paintings were shown at the Museum of Modern Art. Stella was a recipient of the National Medal of Arts in 2009 and the Lifetime Achievement Award in Contemporary Sculpture by the International Sculpture Center in 2011.” – Wikipedia

Frank Stella, 1970-1987 by William Rubin
Shows examples of Stella’s large scale paintings, constructions, and reliefs created over seventeen years, and discusses the themes, style, and materials of his work.

10. Bill Viola (1951-2024) – American video artist
“Bill Viola was an American video artist whose artistic expression depended upon electronic, sound, and image technology in new media. His works focus on the ideas behind fundamental human experiences such as birth, death, and aspects of consciousness.” – Wikipedia

Bill Viola: The Eye of the Heart produced, filmed, and directed by Mark Kidel
Shows examples of Stella’s large scale paintings, constructions, and reliefs created over seventeen years, and discusses the themes, style, and materials of his work.

All items on this list are available at the Perpich Library.