AP Obits--11/24
ObitsMan
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Obituaries in the News
Sun Nov 24, 5:43 PM ET
ROME (AP) - Roberto Echaurren Matta, a Chilean master of surrealist painting
and sculpture, has died at 91.
Matta died Saturday in a hospital in Civitavecchia, near the Tuscan town of
Tarquinia where he lived in a convent.
Chilean President Ricardo Lagos said Matta's death "represents the passing of
one of the last major figures of painting in the 20th century."
His government declared three days of national mourning.
Born in Santiago in 1911, Matta was an architect in Paris until 1937 when he
met Salvador Dali, the Spanish surrealist painter.
Surrealism, founded in 1924 by French writer Andre Breton, advocated the free
expression of imagination in all arts, free of control by the conscious mind.
The doctrine was influenced by Sigmund Freud's works.
Matta's images of cosmic creation were true to surrealist ideals, although his
imaginative use of color and sense of humor made his work difficult to
classify. He created the "accident" of spilled pigment in his canvases.
Eric S. Tachau
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Eric S. Tachau, principal author of Kentucky's
no-fault automobile insurance law and an early civil rights activist, died
Saturday after developing complications from colon cancer. He was 78.
In the 1950s, Tachau helped to secure a new homeowner's insurance policy for
Andrew and Charlotte Wade, a black couple who'd moved to an all-white town,
after violent racial protests prompted the original insurer to back out.
The new policy prevented foreclosure, though the property was eventually
bombed.
In 1964, Tachau and others helped organize a massive march that helped lead to
the passage of Kentucky's Civil Rights Act.
In the 1970s, Tachau led the fight for passage of a no-fault insurance law
which made it possible for motorists to get coverage that paid them for medical
expenses, lost wages and certain other losses without having to prove fault.
Morris N. Young
NORWICH, Conn. (AP) — Dr. Morris N. Young, an eye doctor who was a leading
collector of books on magic, died Nov. 13. He was 93.
Young, an admirer of legendary magician Harry Houdini, built up a collection of
books on subjects including ventriloquism, fortune telling and spiritualism. He
also collected sheet music from icons like Artie Shaw and Louis Armstrong.
In 1955, Young and a friend, John J. McManus, gave a collection of 20,000
books, and other items involving magic, to the Library of Congress. He believed
his collection of books on mnemonics, which he later donated to the University
of San Marino in Italy, was among the world's largest.
Young was also an accomplished doctor, becoming director of ophthalmology at
New York University Downtown Hospital.
Young served in the Army during World War II, working to reconstruct the faces
of wounded airman in Europe and North Africa.